Defensive Powers in First Semifinal

The old saw tells us that offense fills stadiums, but defense wins championships.  The medal contenders meeting in the first semifinal are practitioners of that discipline.  Both squads have played four games and featured disruptive play that has left their opponents grasping and regrouping and finding that they have too little, too late to come back to win.

Ryan Miller has backstopped the USA to the tune of just five goals against.  His Finnish counterparts have been even more stingy giving up but a goal a game.  Though Finland has shared the goalie work between Nicklas Backstrom, who shut out the Germans in his only start, and starter Miikka Kiprusoff it is Kiprusoff who is expected in the pipes this afternoon for the Finns.

Finland is the oldest team in the tournament and significantly older than the Americans.  That can be an advantage or a trap for the veteran team.  Their experience, especially on this stage far exceeds that of  team USA.  Experience is no substitute for talent.  The Finns have some exceptional skaters and boast a fantastic set of netminders.  America's depth of talent though exceeds that of the Finns.

Ron Wilson has done a great job of hurriedly throwing together line combinations and defensive pairings.  The lineups that the Americans throw out on the ice provide scoring prowess and toughness at every turn.  Despite limited practice time, the team has gelled around Miller and have flexed their muscles and thrown their bodies to wreak havoc on their opponents.

The Americans have also demonstrated a willingness to force the tempo of the game by playing extremely aggressively.  They move the puck quickly.  They pepper the net.  They battle for every rebound.  They forecheck.  That aggressiveness remains a key to Team USA in this afternoon's contest.  Forcing the pace of the game, they can wear out the Finns and take advantage of any weariness they may show.

The other key is Ryan Miller.  If he's solid, the US will play Sunday afternoon for the gold medal.  Finland needs Kiprusoff at the top of his game to keep the US off the board early.  Doing so gives them the best chance to steal it late.

Congrats Canada! Your women's Olympic Hockey team won! And the reaction from the IOC: break out the bright lights and the rubber hoses. Because that's what the IOC does when young people have fun, they investigate.

The International Olympic Committee will investigate the actions of Canadian women's hockey players who celebrated their gold medal victory Thursday night by swigging beer and smoking cigars on the ice in Vancouver.

A number of players, including 18-year-old superstar Marie-Philip Poulin, were drinking alcohol on the ice following the team's 2-0 defeat of the United States. (The legal drinking age in British Columbia is 19.) Players lingered for more than 70 minutes after the awards ceremony reveling in the arena, which was empty except for media and arena staff. (Click here to view a slideshow of the celebration.)

Break me a freakin' give, people. Seriously. If you want staid reverential victory celebrations, why on earth are you inviting kids to participate. Kids are exuberant. They are brash. Sometimes they offend their elders. That's their freaking job, you morons.

I'm on principle opposed to drinking ages, because they are basically an arbitrary restriction on personal liberty. I've known plenty of twentysomethings who were not mature enough to drink responsibly. Picking 21, or in British Columbia's case, 19, is entirely arbitrary. There's no basis other than a preference of doltish adults wanting to make sure kids are old enough to drink.

The problem is that with the young lady in question, Marie-Philip Poulin, her dedication to hard work, perseverance and honing her talent at hockey proves unequivocally that she possesses the maturity to consume a beer or six in celebratory excess without civilization crumbling.

The problem is more wide reaching though. Snowboarder Scotty Lago got (unofficially) banished from the games because he was exuberant in celebrating his bronze medal, and the Sauronic eye of TMZ - always watching, watching - caught a few pics of the celebration.

The Scott Lago 'racy pictures' are relatively unremarkable and look much like the photos that would be taken at any average college student's dorm party. While we don't think the pics are that racy they are still rather inappropriate for a forewarned Olympic participant. [emphasis in original - JT]

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Distasteful? Yes. But while many of us have seen worse from teeny bopper Miley Cyrus' cell phone, Scotty's behavior is still considered unacceptable, at least for an Olympic athlete.

Unacceptable behavior from a snowboarder, because he reveled in his accomplishment. The pictures are inappropriate, deems the media that has no issues reprinting the pictures to justify their clucking and tut-tutting. And yes they're distasteful, so very distasteful. Have you seen, them? Aren't they distasteful?

Bunch of hypocrites. Scotty Lago is a 22-year old snowboarder. Snowboarding is less a sport than it is a good time. And that the Olympics want to seem hip by including snowboarding, they need to accept and acknowledge that with that comes a youth culture that's fond of partying. Young folks frequently have no issue with conduct that the hypocrite above calls an "average college student's dorm party." Primarily because they have more connection with those kind of events, because they are age-appropriate endeavors. Does no one in the mainstream media get the incongruity celebrating the accomplishments of young kids and then expecting them to behave like staid, boring adults?

On that score, the answer is no, they don't get it. Unsurprisingly, Pos has some explanation:

That’s not to say that [Lindsey] Jacobellis crashing while trying The Method was not stupid. Sure, it was plenty stupid. But it seems to me that it was stupid in the innocent way that a kid who hangs upside down from a branch and falls out of a tree is stupid. She was feeling the moment. She wanted to give everyone a thrill. Whatever the case, this wasn’t an American Tragedy, and it did not reflect anything more than a 20-year-old kid showing off for the crowd, just like she had her whole life.

In any case, as the story goes, she did not get redemption this Olympics. She bumped a gate during the semifinal of the snowboardcross Tuesday, and this disqualified her. She did not win a medal of any kind. Alas, redemption would not be hers. So it says in the papers and on the Internet. Of course, Jacobellis is a two-time world champion in this sport. She is not only the most famous snowboardcross woman on earth, there really isn’t a second place. She does commercials. There are 10 different companies sponsoring her. She has, in her own words, raised the level of her sport.

And, on the last jump of her Olympic race in Vancouver, Jacobellis — who knew that she would not win a medal — reached down and grabbed the board with TWO hands. I guess they call this trickier move the Truckdriver. Also one word. Kids today. They’re too busy having fun to … not have fun.

In one regard, though, the Olympic planners have no problem acknowledging that young athletes will be young athletes. HT-Slanch on that last story.

In conclusion, the IOC can kiss Lago's medal and give us all a break.

Cross-posted at TetreaultVision

As some of you may know, ESPN's SportsNation selected us as their site of the day.

We're thankful for the recognition and have been basking in the glory of it all day.

Friday's games are hours away and we'll be here all day covering what should be a fantastic slate of hockey.

Some questions we've been kicking around at OHB global headquarters (no its not a basement as my mom's house.....where's the meatloaf mom?) are below. We'd love to hear your thoughts as we close in on the culminating crescendo of the Olympic games.

1) Ryan Miller has been spectacular in goal for the US. Should he log two more awesome performances in wins, does he become a recognizable name and personality outside of the realm of hockey? Is Miller 6 periods away from being one of the few chosen stars of this game who we might see in commercials, on video games, and is known beyond the cult group of hockey fans and more knowledgeable sports fans?

2) What in terms of a bump in ratings and attendance compared to last year do you think the NHL will see down the stretch of the regular season and into the playoffs that could be carry over excitement from this Olympic Games? Shouldn't that in the end be the determining criteria on if the NHL will continue to support the Olympic Games?

3) Should Jagr or Forsberg come back to the NHL?

4) The Olympic Hockey group and medal round format has been through a lot of different versions of the years. Do you think they have it right in its current state? What would you change if anything to the current format.

5) More desirable to win as a hockey player: The cup or a gold medal?

That's it for now. Also since we're blowing up, do we have any visitors from Finland or the Czech Republic who want to say hello? How would you say that in your native language?

With only four countries left in Chase for Salvador Dali's Jewelry, the National Hockey League begins to ramp back up towards conducting a regular season of hockey.  Two-thirds of the Olympic squads are now eliminated, allowing General Managers across the continent to begin a long overdue exhale.  Even so, 26 teams are nervously watching Olympic hockey, waiting the return of players that the IIHF checked out for their research project.  But before we get to them, let's take a look at the four teams that are now intact.

Tell me if you can spot the trend.

New York Islanders - 27th in the National Hockey League.  When Team USA finally finished the Swiss, Garth Snow welcomed the mighty Mark Streit to Uniondale.  Now get back to work.

Florida Panthers - 26th in the National Hockey League.  Vokoun couldn't stop the Finns, and Dennis Seidenberg somehow avoided being on the ice for any of the Canadian's 8 goals.  Nevertheless, it's back to the beach for these two.  Vancouver is cold!

Atlanta Thrashers - 24th in the National Hockey League.  Kovy stole Malkin's number, and for nothing.  Four others from the ATL were ousted yesterday, including Johnny Oduya - the least sounding Swede in the history of Swedes.

You see the trend?  Terrible NHL teams do not breed Olympic gold medalists.   A trend that will no doubt continue with our fourth fully-reformed team:

Washington Capitals - 1st in the National Hockey League.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA?

We'd like to express our sincere appreciation to the folks at SportsNation who today announced that we are today's site they like.

You can catch the announcement this afternoon on ESPN 2 at 4 pm eastern time.

In a game that had been talked about being a possible gold medal matchup, Team Canada destroyed the Russians tonight 7-3. With two star studded teams going head to head tonight, it was a meeting between the teams where no matter who lost, they would be going home to much criticism from their countries. But instead of these two superpowers who were hyped to be a one of the most exciting games between two teams thought to be fairly even in strenghts, the game was anything but even. The game was exciting, yes, if you were cheering for Team Canada.

The Canadians came out hard in the first period with strong forechecking, physical play and shots...lots of shots. The Canadians outshot the Russians 21 to 12 in the first period, getting their first goal only 2 minutes and 21 seconds in to the game. It was set up by Dan Boyle after he walked in to the Russian zone undressing the Russians and from behind the net passed to Ryan Getzlaf for the goal. By the end of 20 minutes, Team Canada was up 4-1 with goals from Getzlaf, Boyle, Nash and Morrow.

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Early on, we declared that America's medal hopes rested on the shoulders of East Lansing, Michigan's Ryan Miller.  He's proving worthy of the challenge.  His 19 save effort in the quarterfinals kept a gritty Swiss team off the board and gave his teammates enough time to rally and put the puck in the net.

Jonas Hiller, Switzerland's fantastic goalie complicated that latter task.  He was nothing short of brilliant in fending of US scoring opportunities for 42 minutes.  He stopped 42 of the 43 shots he faced and kept his nation's hopes alive to the very end of the contest.

To solve Hiller Team USA needed a man advantage.  They got one less than two minutes into the final period.  With Philippe Furrer banished to the box for tripping, the US went on the attack.  Zach Parise scored his first goal twelve seconds into the power play.  Brian Raflaski (where have I heard that name before) and Paul Stastny assisted on the score.

As time ran down, and fans edged closer to the action, the one goal lead seemed far too little.  The Swiss were pressing, desperate to force overtime when four on four hockey meant a more open style of play and one fewer American throwing himself into a check.  They yanked Hiller as time bled out.

But Parise made the Swiss pay for their daring.  With twelve seconds to go, he iced the game, putting the puck in the unguarded Swiss net.

The complexion of the game was almost altered with time expiring in the second period.  Team USA was skating circles around the Swiss for much of the game.  It appeared that Team USA had scored in the waning seconds.  But the goal was disallowed with the officials saying time had expired before the puck crossed the goal line.  Could have been a much different game if the goal had not been disallowed. Another .02 and it was probably a goal, it was that close.

Switzerland put up a good fight but they just didn't have anywhere near the offense necessary to beat Miller and the US.

Crafting a shutout has been a challenge for US netminders.  Miller snapped an eight year drought by stopping 19 shots and holding the fort.  It was two Olympics ago in Salt Lake City in the quarterfinal round when Mike Richter blanked Germany.  That US team went on to win the silver, losing to Canada in the gold medal game.  This year's entrant can do no worse than play for a medal. 

To earn the right to play for Gold, Team USA must topple the winner of the Finland-Czech Republic game set to begin at 7:00 pm in Vancouver (10:00 pm eastern time).  We'll have a preview of the semifinal matchup posted tomorrow.

On the way to my second job yesterday I was listening to 98.5 The Sports Hub's Michael Felger ask Cam Neeley a pretty intriguing question. (Paraphrased) "What makes hockey players able to play such great games in the Olympics when other sports like baseball and basketball don't seem to care?" Cam stumbled over his words for a minute and rifled off an answer that led Felger into another "big, fat, wet, sloppy sportsgasm."

"They're hockey players."