Olympic Hockey Musings

February 14, 2010 @ 09:37

It was interesting to hear Steve Yzerman claim that Russia should be favoured to win gold at the Olympic hockey tournament.

I'd like to say it's nothing more that mind games, but it's not. What he says may serve to take some pressure off Team Canada, but there's no getting around it, the fire power that the Russians have is a major concern. Couple their offence with Canada's traditional struggle to score goals at these tournaments, and there's trouble on the horizon.

Goaltending is another major issue. We can only hope that Martin Brodeur's recent struggles come from lack of concentration as he looks towards the next couple of weeks. If not, we're in big trouble unless Mike Babcock shows some king sized balls and goes to Roberto Luongo sooner than later.

And on the subject of goaltending, Team USA poses a huge threat if Ryan Miller gets into a groove. The rest of the American squad is good enough to pull this off if Miller throws up a brick wall. However, if there's anything that can counter-balance the potential danger of Team USA, it's Ron Wilson. He's not a very good coach. He's proving it with the Maple Leafs, and hopefully he'll screw things up in Vancouver.

Yzerman also stated that it would be a shame if the NHL does not allow its players to participate in 2014 in Russia. I disagree.

As intriguing as it is to have the world's best players in the Olympics, I don't it's fair to other athletes from Canada and other hockey nations like Sweden, Finland and Russia.

In Canada, the Olympics have become a hockey tournament with some other events placed around them and it's really not fair. Talk to anyone about the games in Canada, and it seems all they want to talk about is hockey. I'm sure it's the same in the other countries I mentioned.

And a while back I mentioned that I think Olympic organizers should take a long hard look at women's hockey. It's simply not competitive enough and to some degree its become silly.

Last night's 18-0 victory for Canada over Slovakia highlights it.

There would be nothing wrong with eliminating women's hockey until more than two nations became competitive. It would be the noble thing to do, but of course you know it won't happen. The backlash would be worse than the ski jumping controversy.

In the meantime, we'll all sit around and watch Canada and the USA humiliate everybody else until they inevitably meet in the gold medal game.

Category: Sports

37 Responses to "Olympic Hockey Musings"

Argie
February 14, 2010 / 14:04

Fred,

I have to disagree. Olympics need the pros to play in hockey. Without it there's very little interest in the other sports.

Yes we like to think the Olympics is all about amateur sport but in reality its not. Its big business - not just from a corporate sponsor point of view but also many of the athletes. Check out that guy from the US who looks like carrot top (the snow boarder) he drives a friggin Lamborghini. Donavon Baily stayed with his entourage in a 5 star hotel at the 96 games when we competed and there are countless other examples.

I agree women's hockey is a joke - not just in terms of completion but also in the quality of play including the Cdn girls. Give another 20 years before they think about allowing women's hockey again.

Oh another thing - is it possible to go 2 minutes of watching the Olympic coverage and not have someone mention our first nations/Indians/aboriginals/whatever they're calling themselves today??? Just asking...

Gary
February 15, 2010 / 18:06

Fred,

Not quite sure about what you're saying about NHL players playing in the Olympics. I'm always torn about supporting the Olympics or not for all the political crap that surrounds it.

That being said, I think one of the problems is consistency. Are you suggesting that certain Olympics (ie. those ones that are held in North America) have the NHL players play and those that aren't, don't get them?

In my mind, they should either play or not play, regardless of where the games are held. If not, it adds to the already abundant already apparent hypocrysy of the games.

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