VS.
Sweden faced Slovakia last night in what seemed to be the only untelevised women's preliminary round hockey game. I checked every NBC station there was and couldn't find it. Grant it, it was on later in the evening when the news channels generally show their talking head (idiot) shows but come on, NBC. This is the Olympics. It only happens every four years so you are missing out on an audience to expand your product. I won't get into that now.
The first thing that sticks out in this match was the amount of penalty minutes. Usually in tournament play, especially international tournament play, there is much more attention to the defensive portion of the game. While penalties do happen, they don't occur as often as they do sometimes in NHL matchups. Total for the game were 26 penalty minutes encompassing 13 called penalties. Sometimes the refs just need to eat thier whistles.
The second aspect that looked interesting is the fact that Slovakia actually showed some signs of life, tying the score late in the second at 2-2. Considering the slaughtering by Canada in their previous game 18-0, I'm sure these girls felt good going into the locker room knotted up with the favorite for the Bronze Medal. Of course, the rest of the game saw Sweden unload on the Slovakian team, finally outshooting them 48-16.
Sweden wins! 6-2
I hope there are women's hockey games in the Olympics that will actually be competitive. So far, there haven't been any.
ReplyDeleteUS vs. Canada should make for a good time. The US/Canada vs. Sweden should also be good.
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