| 22 February 2010
Last night the Canada and United States Olympic hockey teams battled in a fantastic tilt that saw the US win 5-3 behind a hot goalie (Ryan Miller) and a balanced offensive attack. To say that the United States dominated the ice, however, is grossly misleading as Canada (almost) doubled USA's shots on goal (45-23). For a complete review of the game, please visit the game review written by Joe Tetreault.
Because Canada lost, they will face Germany on February 23 at 4:30 PST (7:30pm EST). As I've been trying my best to cover the German Olympic team between illness and my own wedding, I've noticed that this team is more of a bandy league champion than an Olympic gold medal champion.
Germany was stomped in opening preliminary play, going 0-3 and being shut out two of the three games they played in (0-2 to Sweden, 0-5 to Finland). Much like Germany, Canada struggled in preliminary play as well, though their 2-1 record doesn't reflect that. After an easy 8-0 victory over Norway, Canada struggled to a 3-2 shootout win over the Swiss and the aforementioned 5-3 loss to the United States.If anyone believes that this game will be competitive, they must be tested for some sort of psycotropic drug because Germany has been anything but competitive throughout these Olympics. Germany has been the welcome mat for Group C, which includes a bad Belarus team (that beat the Germans 5-3) and hasn't shown much spark throughout these games. Hell, their first goal came in their third game of preliminary play when David Seindenberg scored on the power play. Since that goal though, the Germans really haven't been in a game.
Canada will be flying after an embarrassing loss (in the eyes of Canadians) to the United States and should be embarrassed if they score anything less than ten goals on either Thomas Greiss (3.55 GAA, 83% S%) or Dimitri Patzold (5.00 GAA, 85.71 S%).
Look for Roberto Luongo to get the start against Germany because Marty Brodeur did not look sharp against the United States. Luongo has one start under his belt and made 15 saves in the shutout against Norway.
There is absolutely no way Canada coughs this one up against Germany, which saddens me because I'd love to see the Germans pull off a major upset. The German team isn't as deep as the Canadians, they don't have the talent of the Canadians and they'll get crushed from the drop of the puck to the last tick of the clock. There is no way Canada loses two in a row in Vancouver.
I'll have to full review on Wednesday morning of the game (working a double tomorrow with no access to a computer during/after game time).
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