Olympic ice hockey thread

I'm American and sick of the 1980 nostalgia.

 

Isn't that what the Russian defender tried to take away? In hindsight I guess the best defense would have been bear hugging Mario, which didn't always work.

 

The other question I've had since "Miracle" came out: Ruskies didn't pull the goaltender in the final minute. Is it just something that they never thought to do, since they had been so dominant?

 

I don't follow hockey closely and take your word for it, but why? By the time he shot he was 1 on 1 with the goalie, no?

 

Are we discussing the women's hockey on this thread or the other? Tried to watch some Russia and Japan yesterday but it was so slow that I was bored to tears. The US and Canada are so much faster than everyone else it's ridiculous. That was pretty fun to watch this morning.

 

Well, it took Lemieux's crazy reach to poke the puck out Canada's zone, and (maybe) it took Gretzky's anticipation to race up to where Lemieux would pass it. It might be a bit hyperbolic to say the rest of the goal is something only those two could have pulled off. It was a nice drop to Lemieux and a beautiful shot, but there are others who could have made that play too.

 

Totally agree.

 

Excellent question. The USSR was certainly putting the heat on in the American zone at the end. I can still see Mikhailov busting his butt on the forecheck. Could be wrong but I don't recall either Michaels or Dryden mentioning the possibility on the ABC telecast.

 

It's stuff that we'll never, ever see again, given the sporting and political dynamics of the times. I can't separate the politics of the old Soviet Union from the Summit Series, either.

A friend gave me a book entitled "The Greatest Game" about the match between the Soviet Red Army team and the Montreal Canadiens in the mid 1970s, as a Christmas gift. Good read with a lot of interesting background about Soviet hockey that I hadn't read before.

 

For those interested......

Sweden vs. Czech Republic live on USA Network. Latvia vs. Switzerland live on MSNBC. All games will be aired lived, but depending on the time of day, it could be on NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, USA Network or NBC.

 

That was fun to watch. Team USA was lucky it didn't get blown out.

Didn't you think the officiating was just down-right awful? The whistle had obviously been blown prior to one of Team Canada's third-period goals, TWO too-many-gals on the ice infractions by Canada were missed, they gave the Americans a timeout they weren't entitled to, and failed to call on obvious blow-to-the-head penalty by an American earlier in the game.

One of the United States players was hooked in the waning seconds, but there aren't very many refs anywhere that are going to blow the whistle then.

Hope we don't see this incompetence in the men's tournament.

 

Just when Russia's playing.