EHM The Blue Line

after first goal they just shat their pants.

I was hoping for CAN-FIN final, but now it's such a long way for the Finns. I seriously hope they'll stand up and fight, even if the win seems so far away.

our team is best in one thing, letting down their fans

What the Lindros are S.Koivu, Selänne and Lehtinen doing in there? The train has passed a LOOONG time ago... Please understand to retire!

i hope tomorrow jalonen and his wild bunch save their face. bronze taste better than nothing.

Most embarrassing period in a big game ever. Maybe, just maybe people will stop talking about certain San Jose Sharks for a bit. Kipper et al were absolutely horrendous. You cannot even say the USA was that good. The Finns were just that bad.

But...should Canada defeat Slovakia (which will NOT be easy...repeat NOT be easy) the Gold Medal match I have wanted since a certain round robin game...will be ON! That will be one heck of a hockey game.

batdad wrote:But...should Canada defeat Slovakia (which will NOT be easy...repeat NOT be easy) the Gold Medal match I have wanted since a certain round robin game...will be ON! That will be one heck of a hockey game.

I am pumped up to see what our guys can do against Canada. As long as they will be legitimate opponents, it's all good. And if we will actually beat you...wow.

Slovaks have alot of vets. They will play the system they need to play to beat Canada. 1-2-2 or 0-3-2 or 0-0-5. Whatever is needed. They are a fairly old (and experienced) team. The trap can frustrate the heck out of Canada. Hopefully they have worked hard on D to D...dump it in....chase...destroy.

Mertaranta (our commentator) said that Lydman is 32-year-old goalie.

Maybe you should have started Lydman.

batdad wrote:Maybe you should have started Lydman.

Heck yea! would've been much better than 33 year old goalie who likes to play his own bad game in olympic SEMIFINALS.

USA kicked A**

3-1 canada losing?

Woahhhhhhhhhhhh! What an end for that game!! darn Slovakia is really a surprising team. Poor Demitra who's been stole by Luongo. If Luongo wasn't touching that puck it would be 3-3 right now! Good job from Slovakia though, great determination.

For the first 55 minutes, the Slovakians never troubled Canada. They had about 10 shots which never really tested Luongo (who still looked a little shaky).

Shame Slovakian didn't play for 60 minutes.

For us neutrals though, Canada - USA is the perfect final.

Fin - USA: Finland just runned out of Sisu after the brutal start. But you would have thought the veterans would step up when it got tough, but no.

Can - Svk: The Slovaks were traping happy. I don't know why, but they are still exciting to watch. They just brought down the tempo to a level they could compete at and nearly succeeded in the end.

Upcoming games:

USA - Can: Big game, huge pressure! Canada really need to keep guys like Pronger on the bench and get their shaky goaltending going (who would have thought that would be a problem?). USA will count on Miller and speed as they lack a bit of back-end.

Svk - Fin: My father is Slovakian and my mother Finnish, interesting game for me . I will go with the Slovakian team here. Finland haven't showed anything for some games now and why won't you bench Kipper? It is his problem if he gets angry, not yours?


batdad: I somewhat wrong about the chinstrap issue, but the players still keeps the ir straps too loose. Two fingers is the guideline and who knows is it would have hold if he used it properly.

What the hell were the Finns doing against USA?

Great game (last five minutes) by Slovakia against Canada, for some reason Sweden's loss against Slovakia in the quarter final seems to be less painful now.

Well we really made Canadians wall their net in the last couple of minutes...boy what a thriller. There's nothing to be ashamed of. If we stick to our game, we can beat Finland.

Círyatan wrote:My Finnish friends, what's happening?

Remember sisu!

Of course we remembered "sisu", that's why we didn't allowed goals in rest of the periods.

Is "sisu" in english something like "cold will"?

visualdarkness wrote:Fin - USA: Finland just runned out of Sisu after the brutal start. But you would have thought the veterans would step up when it got tough, but no.

Can - Svk: The Slovaks were traping happy. I don't know why, but they are still exciting to watch. They just brought down the tempo to a level they could compete at and nearly succeeded in the end.

Upcoming games:

USA - Can: Big game, huge pressure! Canada really need to keep guys like Pronger on the bench and get their shaky goaltending going (who would have thought that would be a problem?). USA will count on Miller and speed as they lack a bit of back-end.

Svk - Fin: My father is Slovakian and my mother Finnish, interesting game for me . I will go with the Slovakian team here. Finland haven't showed anything for some games now and why won't you bench Kipper? It is his problem if he gets angry, not yours?


batdad: I somewhat wrong about the chinstrap issue, but the players still keeps the ir straps too loose. Two fingers is the guideline and who knows is it would have hold if he used it properly.

Bäckström will play against Slovakia.

What a horrible game, USA was stunning in first period. 2nd period was boring hockey and in 3rd period USA stopped playing, they shoot only 2 times. Quality of the game was very low. One of the most boring game i've ever seen, not by results, by quality. It's been long time we lost like this, in 2003 world championships in Finland we lead Sweden 5-1 and losted 5-6. I remember i was kid and went sleep when game was 5-1 and in morning i asked my mom, how the game ends... maybe you can imagine the end.

Finlands heroes in USA match were Filppula, Kukkonen and Lydman. Why not Bäckström. I can't stand why Kipper was so nervous, is it cause he hasn't played for Team Finland since world cup at 2004? Usually he is icecold, like Kimi Räikkönen.

Niskala was horrible in defense. He was horrible against Sweden, but against Czech Rep. he was good. He is just big disaster in defense. That's why Mike Green and Petteri Nummelin shouldn't be in Olympics (Joni Pitkänen is only exception). I miss Teppo Numminen-Kimmo Timonen, they we're great def. line in Turin. In these tournament it could have still been good line.

Can't stand that people are angry cause Selänne, Koivu or Lehtinen haven't made goals like 10 years ago. It's normal, that old age didn't come alone. It's stupid to wait same kind of playing like world championships at 1995 (Koivu, Lehtinen, Peltonen) or Nagano at 1998 or Turin at 2006 (Selänne). Their role ain't same.

Other thing i can't stand, why people are so angry. We play in bronze medal game, it's very good result in these kind of tournament: Russia out, Czech Rep. out, Sweden out... Nobody thought we can even get medal, and now we play in bronze medal game.

I'm not talking that i'm proud of that 6-1 result, but it doesn't matter anymore. Tomorrow (GMT+2 in Finland, in Canada it's today) is new game. Hopefully we can start from clean table.

Let's get a bronze.

I think USA will win the gold. Ryan Miller is too strong and USA proved they can score goals(not naff ones like in the Can vs. USA). Anyone have any different predictions?

Miller is on fire and i wouldn't be surprise they beat Canada. Not much sure about the goalie of Canada......I hate team USA but if Canada win they will need to give their 110%.

Couldn't move this so I quote it instead:

Círyatan wrote:I feel bad for Finland. I don't know what happened to Kipper, and it's really sad to watch an undoubtedly great goalie have such a terrible game. There was nothing Bäckström could do to save it. Finnish players just lost their will to fight, and from the second period on it was a really boring game. Americans had no reason to push it, and Finns seemed unable to do anything. Still, Miller was awesome, as usual. I think he has the ability to win this tournament for Team USA.

The Canada-Slovakia game started at half past three here, and luckily I had woken up in time. The game just lost its momentum halfway through the second period, and I almost fell asleep, when suddenly Slovaks started fighting back. At least we got to watch a thrilling game in the end.

Great job, Slovakia. It will be extremely difficult for Finland to win the bronze if you maintain this form.

Jypfan92 wrote:Bäckström will play against Slovakia.

They said Kipper would probably get the next start too on Swedish television after the game, but it looks like they were wrong. Is he really that much of a pest media makes him out to be? Though I guess the Edmonton part of media I follow is a bit nuanced.