Everything Else

Wear The Grudge Like A Crown: Olympic Quarterfinal Wrap

By Sam Fels 1208 0

Everything pretty much went to script, and now the Olympics gets the treat of having what are probably the two leading international rivalries in its semifinal. Should make for quite the morning on Friday. Let’s run through the action.

Sweden 5 – Slovenia 0: Took the Swedes longer than I thought and Slovenia actually had a couple chances here or there. Sweden will take heart that they finally got Daniel Sedin off the schneid, but I don’t know if that’s a long term pattern. He hasn’t been all that noticeable the rest of the time. This Swedish defense is playing too well at the moment, and that’s with Alex Edler and his elbows back. By the way, did you notice in their Kronwall hit montage that he left his feet in like 80% of them? Of course you did. But with him on the third pairing and Hjalmarsson and Oduya looking at their best, it really has become an impenetrable force. I do love how they include Johan Franzen on the “Key Injury” list for Sweden, even though Mule hasn’t been useful in at least three years.

Everything Else

An Example For All: Bruins 2 – Hawks 2 (Hawks win Beer Pong)

By Sam Fels 1283 0

Box Score

Event Summary

Extra Skater

I don’t want to get too extravagant or over the top here, but I can’t help but smile at how the Hawks and Bruins demonstrated everything good the sport can be a little more than 13 hours after Vancouver and Calgary pretty much embarrassed everyone involved with it. Because today was as good a game as the regular season can produce. And it involved none of the bullshit that sometimes comes with teams with a history.

It was fast, it was passionate, it was physical at times, both teams traded periods of having the upperhand. Big saves, big hits, nifty passing, defensive responsibility, it wouldn’t have looked out of place in late May. If there’s any downside, it was just another illustration that a contest like this is somewhat sullied by having it end in a skills competition. It easily could have ended 2-2 and I doubt anyone would have walked out of that building feeling like they didn’t get their money’s worth.

Everything Else

Night Of The Living Dead: Avs 2 – Hawks Touchdown And PAT

By Sam Fels 1078 0

I don’t know that you learn anything from a night like this. When the opponent clearly is still stowed away neatly in the overhead against the Hawks, it’s going to be over in a hurry unless the Hawks are also a couple tacos short of a combo plate. Sadly for the Avs, the Hawks most certainly were not.

This game was probably over when it was scheduled and the Avs weren’t allowed to travel until this morning. While I wrote into tonight’s Indian how I thought the union’s call for a three-day Christmas break was harming the league (no exposure at a time when everyone’s sitting around begging for a distraction from their family), I understand wanting Christmas Eve and Christmas day at home with loved ones. I would have thought extending it to Boxing Day would save everyone the hassle of traveling on Christmas night. But to extend a travel ban through the next day? You’re essentially sentencing more than a few teams to be up against it, and Colorado was one of them. I don’t think it’s asking too much for teams to be allowed to fly into town the night of the 26th. It would give them more of a fighting chance.