Olympic Notes

I meant to do a lot more post over the Olympics but now that the preliminary round is over, its the best time to say a couple things:

• Norway's Pal Grotnes and Tore Vikingstad should get NHL tryouts. They've had a good tournament so far.
• In hindsight, Ovechkin's hit on Jagr isn't as spectacular as it's hyped to be. Unless you take into account 2 things:
  1. Because International Rules are lame...er...stricter, any open-ice hit is considered awesome.
  2. It's the first time anyone seen Ovi make a clean hit.
• Speaking of awesome and Russia, it's nice to see Slovakia get the upset over them.
• How does Switzerland give the US and Canada a hard time but allows Norway to score 4 goals on them?
• Even through inserting/removing players from rosters are prohibited, what's the rule on coaches? Seriously though, what was Babcock thinking in either not pulling Brodeur or calling a timeout near the end of the game.
• The bigger question of the Canada-US game: How the hell does a team with the Leafs GM and coach win?
• Only Pool C had no surprises (maybe Sweden shutting out Finland but nothing major).
• 2 true facts about the standings:
  1. If the Sweden-Finland game went to overtime and Sweden won, Canada would have faced Finland after Germany, not Russia (thus confirming TSN needs a fact-checker).
  2. If the Canada-US game went into overtime, Canada would have had a top 4 finish, meaning they would get a first round bye.

On a semi-related Olympic note - A new slogan for these games (inspired by our failure in short track and ski cross) should be: You're either a medallist, or Canadian.

About The Kovalchuk Trade

After reviewing the blockbuster Kovalchuk trade, there is only one thing to say about Atlanta's GM Don Waddell...

He's the dumbest active GM

Since this involves Atlanta, here is:

You Know Your Atlanta's GM When...

• Mike Mulbury tells you how it should have went down.
• Your team's future is built with this guy.
• Out of all the teams linked to the high-scoring Russian, the team that plays "the trap" seems the most suited.
• A 50-goal scorer and a borderline NHL defenseman seems enough to get only one draft pick.
• Raising Kovy's trade value includes announcing that a $101-million/12 year deal isn't enough for him.
• When NBC calls and ask you to become a late-night executive.

Olympic Plans

Side Note - Before the main post I got to say something about the World Juniors:
With the way Canada played against the U.S., next year I should try-out for the team.

Since the Olympics are a couple weeks away, it is a good time to look at the game plans of the nations competing for the gold.

Belarus - Still missing Salo.

Canada - See Russia.

Czech Republic - Will eventually regret not putting Hasek's corpse on the roster.

Finland - Donald Duck's nephews will lead us to victory.

Germany - Willing to rely on the same roster year after year

Latvia - Now that we got the oldest goalie we might have success.

Norway - Will think of a game plan soon, still trying to figure out how we made it this far.

Russia - See Canada.

Slovakia - Halak should be a star goalie now that there's a real team in front of him.

Sweden - Playing with health issues isn't a big problem...right?

Switzerland - Pray that Turin wasn't a fluke.

USA - Play with truculence, since it has worked so well for the Leafs.

Time To Shift The Focus

After seeing the ONLY entertaining game of the World Juniors (seeing the Swiss get into the Quarterfinals is surprising...er...wrong game) it makes one think...

Why not switch focus for a bit.

Since all the real games are the at late stages of the tournament, why doesn't Hockey Canada promote the Spengler Cup team.

This years version of Team Canada wasn't that great (damn Mannheim had the other half of our team) but at least most of there games were close ones and not ones that were decided in the first period. Unless the Junior team plays the U.S., Sweden, or Russia (even then the Russian team has slowed down) then it is almost a guaranteed blow-out.

Maybe it is time to let the Spengler Cup into the spotlight.

Something's Not Right...

Ok, so I don't post as often as I like. In fairness, laziness is an uncontrollable disease...or not.

Anyways, there are a couple things that aren't right in the Hockey World:

• Philadelphia (a team known for toughness) hired a coach who's up for wimpiest coach of the decade.
• CSKA Moscow's defense is so thin, they started signing old guys to help out (oh, just one...a Russian legend...moving on...)
• The Habs are still intended on using Price over Halak (ok, so that is expected).
• Price is making saves right and center (unless they're easy shots, and still no word on where his left side went to).
• And finally, the Leafs finding ways to win a game.

Ok, I guess some aren't as weird as they should be.

On a side note, I hope there is some footage of Fetisov's "comeback" out there soon.