The Canadians want revenge from a week ago...
For Team USA, they'd like to pay back Canada for winning gold on their soil in 2002
By Adam Bernard
Any hockey player will tell you the holy grail is the Stanley Cup. To have your name engraved on that trophy is the pinnacle of any hockey player's career. It's one of the toughest championships to win in sports and many players go their entire careers without even having the chance to play for it. What's at stake today is a prize of a different color. Unlike the 36lb silver chalice, this is a piece of gold that you wear around your neck and only get the chance to win once every four years (sounds like the prize of a tournament held in Brooklyn). The chance to hear your nation's anthem as the victory song only comes around once every four years, and most players will never know the feeling of one Olympic game. What's at stake today is also about pride, and little brother has a legitimate chance to beat the bigger brother today.
Drastically different paths were taken by Team USA and Team Canada to make the final game. For the Americans, they have yet to lose a game in these Olympics and have had the easiest road of any team. Two earned victories against Switzerland, a late surge against a meager Norway team, a victory over a lackadaisical effort from these Canadians, and an absolute trouncing of Team Finland. Pierre Maguire said it best on the NBC telecast when he said he's never seen a team give up the way Team Finland did against the United States. Veteran netminder Miika Kiprusoff made a pee-wee mistake early in the Olympic Semifinals, and it was all downhill from there. Six United States goals scored in the first half of the 1st period. Defensive breakdowns by Finland were aplenty, and a sloppy start played right in to the hands of the United States' "attack early and often" strategy. The US is getting the right production from many places. Brian Rafalski was potent from the blueline and Zach Parise carried this team offensively early in the tournament. Patrick Kane finally broke out when it mattered. Brooks Orpik and Tim Gleason (Gleason was a late addition to Team USA) are making teams pay for trying to get past the blueline. Ryan Kesler's two way play has been phenomenal. And most importantly, Ryan Miller is making all the big saves at the right time. Team USA is playing hard, efficient, and smart, and you can thank head coach Ron Wilson for that.
The team that hails from the host country had a speed bump-laden road to the gold medal match. After an expected whooping of Norway, they had to go to a shootout to beat the tough Swiss. After a poor performance to these Americans, Canada beat Germany soundly and sent a message to the hockey world that they could play to high expectations with an embarrassment of the 2nd best team in the world (on paper, that is) in Russia. After all of that, they still had to survive a comeback effort from a Slovakian team that made Canada earn their birth to today's game. You can argue both teams took the exact path they needed to do to be mentally ready for 3PM Eastern today.
Here's the tale of the tape:
-GOALTENDING: The backbone of the US success is Sabres goalie Ryan Miller. If the US wanted a chance at gold, he had to be stellar, and he's met the challenge. He's kept Team USA in every game and is showing the world why he should win the Vezina if Buffalo wins their division (which is likely). Nothing more can be asked of Miller. As for Canada, goaltending was one of the major issues for the team in this tournament. After Canucks G Roberto Luongo was given a gift-start in front of his home fans against Norway to open the tournament (a shutout performance, by the way), Red Wings coach Mike Babock went to all-time wins and shutout king Martin Brodeur. After a tough game against Team Switzerland and a weak performance against the United States, Babcock went back to Luongo. The results have been a shutout against the worst team in the tournament, a win against Russia where he never had to worry, and a good test against Slovakia. While Luongo has been efficient, his reputation to choke in big games is prevalent. This is easily the biggest game he's played in yet for his career.
**EDGE USA
-DEFENSEMEN: Team Canada has one of the best grouping of defenseman (Pronger-Niedermayer, Seabrook-Keith, Weber-Boyle with Doughty being paired with whoever) ever assembled. However, the blue collar USA group (Suter-Rafalski, Jack Johnson-Erik Johnson, Orpik-Gleason with Whitney being paired with whoever) has performed very strong since the Norway game. The US group loves to be physical while the Canadians can be potent from the blueline.
**SLIGHT EDGE CANADA
-FORWARDS: Both clubs are getting great efforts from the right players. Some have taken longer to jump start than others (see Patrick Kane for USA, Ryan Getzlaf for Team Canada), while others have been consistent throughout the tournament (see Sidney Crosby for Canada, Zach Parise for USA). The bottom line is Canada's group of forwards is better than Team USA's, but Team USA has the right line combinations that balance both chemistry and defensive matching ability.
**EDGE CANADA - BUT THE US HAS PROVEN THEY CAN CONTAIN THIS GROUP BEFORE
-COACHING: Mike Babcock has coached many a big game as the Red Wings and Ducks head coach. He's in uncharted waters as the head coach in a world tournament. Ron Wilson doesn't have an Olympic gold under his belt, but he did beat Canada on their soil in 1996 for the World Cup. Babcock knows how to handle big games, but Ron Wilson knows how to handle big games AND has the type of roster he can coach best.
**EDGE TEAM USA
PREDICTION - I picked USA to win gold before the Olympics started, why change now. I'm going to say USA wins 4-2 with the 4th goal being an empty-netter.
This will be quite the hockey game and will be entertaining to watch whether you're a hockey/sports fan or not. A win for Team Canada and they managed to survive the heavy burden of pressure placed on them to win on home turf. A loss and the resurgence was all for nothing. A win for Team USA and it's the country's first gold medal since the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid in 1980. A loss, and it would be a reminder who the big brother is in this relationship and a finish that would resemble Salt Lake City 2002 in a very bad way. 3PM and your local NBC affiliate is all you need tomorrow afternoon.
BRONZE MEDAL GAME
FINLAND 4 - SLOVAKIA 3
Saku Koviu, Teemu Selanne, Jarkko Ruutu and Mikko Koivu celebrate their Bronze Medal Victory
Slovakia won and lost this game within the same game. The Slovaks carried a 3-1 lead in to the 3rd period thanks to goals from their three big stars (Marian Gaborik, Marian Hossa, and a shorthanded tally from Pavol Demitra). They looked comfortable with this lead, played comfortable, and that opened the window for Olli Jokinen (who scored two goals and said this will be his last Olympics) and Team Finland to fight back. The Finns played with the fire they lacked against the United States and scored four 3rd period goals to medal for the 4th time in 5 Olympics. Slovakia was denied the opportunity to medal for the first time.
"If someone would tell us before the tournament that we're going to win the bronze medal, I would say we would take it right away .Obviously gold was our dream but we had no tools to be in the final. I think the two best teams are in the final and hopefully the better team wins tomorrow." said Finland's Teemu Selanne, who leaves the Games as the Olympics all-time leading scorer.
While Slovakia were crushed that they would not be returning home with a medal, the fourth place finish goes into the record books as the country's best ever Olympic result. "We wanted a medal so badly," said Marian Hossa. "It's just a tough pill to swallow right now because we were in such a great position coming into the third and we got into penalty trouble. But I think we can be proud of our guys. We did a lot of good things but it's not what we wanted to finish fourth."
Three members of the Finnish team, Jere Lehtinen, Ville Peltonen, Saku Koivu all received their fourth Olympic medals doubling the membership of an exclusive hockey club that includes the Czech Republic's (formerly Czechoslovakia) Jiri Holik, Soviet Union's Vladislav Tretyak and Russia's Igor Kravchuk.
Some of the information and the photo used in this report is courtesy of Reuters.
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