Quarter Final Surprises

So the Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Quarter Final round is over. I was pretty surprised by some of the results.

The one game that went more or less according to plan was the USA/Switzerland game. I would have preferred to see the US offense explode and bury the poor Swiss by 8 or 9 goals, but I will take a 2-0 win if that's what's there for the taking. Their reward for their victory last night is a chance to get blanked by Miikka Kiprusoff. Let's hope the offense has a better time against the Kipper then it did against Jonas Hiller.

Finland beat the Czech Republic. I like the Finns. Four years ago, after the USA was eliminated, I through all of my weight (figuratively) behind Finland. This year I get to root against them. They will play my home town team, the United States of America tomorrow at 3:00pm Eastern time. I have to admit that I sort of expected the Czechs to run away with this game. Maybe I still have memories of their gold medal in 1998 swimming in my head, but I thought they would do better. Of course, they did have to face Miikka Kiprusoff. USA take note, please.

In a major upset, the Slovakians beat Sweden last night. That is definitely a shock. Slovakia is no slouch, don't get me wrong, but Sweden is a powerhouse and they beat them 4-3. Slovakia's prize for beating the Swedish team? Nuttin' much, just Canada. Just the best team in the known universe. I'll be rooting for Slovakia. When the USA beat Canada Sunday night it was amazing, but I would prefer not to have to sit through that match up again in a gold medal game. Granted, if Sunday was a sign, it might be the best game ever. The pure hockey fan in me wants to see USA/Canada in the gold medal game. The hockey loving citizen of the United States of America wants to see USA/Slovakia. Again, no offense to Slovakia... but I bet they'd all understand.

The big surprise last night was the huge let down that was Canada vs Russia. I said yesterday that these two teams are on paper the best two teams in the world. I was expecting all of the excitement and drama and wonder that we saw in the USA/Canada game. Instead we saw Canada utterly destroy Russia. The great Russian Bear rolled over and died and let the Canadian team coast to an improbable 7-3 win. I expected Canada to win last night, but I also expected Russia to show up. I was flat out wrong on that front.

So tomorrow the medal round match ups will be decided. In what will go down as yet another NBC screw over of hockey fans, on the East coast at least, the USA/Finland game will be at 3:00pm Eastern time while everyone in the USA is at work and the Canada/Slovakia game will start at 9:30pm Eastern time when at least 25% of the United States viewing population will be asleep before the game ends if not before it starts.

USA!
USA!
USA!