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 mega_bassist wrote:
Hehe, "tiddlywinks"

/imanadult

But in seriousness, I had a similar conversion the other day when a friend was staying table tennis wasn't a sport.

Table tennis seams to me more of a sport that curling. Who Curls? Really! Had anyone heard of this sport before the Olympics? This is a game you play with your friends while drinking in a frozen pond in the winter. The second you take this game seriously enough to rent ice time and buy special brooms, its just too much. It's like professional broom-ball. Yeah Broom-ball is fun...when you are drunk, playing with your friends and have petty rivalries. Its not to be taken seriously.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1963130-future-of-us-olympic-curling-at-serious-crossroad-after-disastrous-sochi-result

The attitude is that this is more of a social game, it was never meant to be competitive.

How the hell does Curling become an Olympic sport before Lacrosse? Or hell even bowling? The pool of great Curlers must be in the ten of.......tens. There are probably less people that Curl than there are that play warhammer fantasy.

I'm must be a backward 'Murrican hick, because I've never heard of "Curling" until the '08 Olympics...

And the periodic posting of d-usa's Curling league.

People who think curling isn't a sporting competition haven't curled!

But the question of "do we send the best team, or do we build a team out of the best" will be talked about a lot over the next few years.

 d-usa wrote:
People who think curling isn't a sporting competition haven't curled!

Look, I'm sure its fun. I bet its great to go out and play, drinking with your buddies. But its not anywhere on the same level as say....Hockey or skiing.

You could say the same for a lot of sports in the summer Olympics. Many of them are somewhere on the gradient between athleticism and skill.

Thankfully for curling it's slim pickings for winter sports in the Olympics

So... I might be a little behind, but did I hear correctly that Latvia beat Canada in Men's Hockey? Ouch.

I did not hear correctly, they haven't played yet.

 Alfndrate wrote:
So... I might be a little behind, but did I hear correctly that Latvia beat Canada in Men's Hockey? Ouch.

I did not hear correctly, they haven't played yet.

No but Russia got eliminated by Finland. Which was a huge surprise to me.

Kinda glad, Datsyuk can give that knee of his another week of rest now.

 djones520 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
So... I might be a little behind, but did I hear correctly that Latvia beat Canada in Men's Hockey? Ouch.

I did not hear correctly, they haven't played yet.

No but Russia got eliminated by Finland. Which was a huge surprise to me.

Kinda glad, Datsyuk can give that knee of his another week of rest now.

Lol, Poor Russia... they tried so hard. I didn't see any of the game, but I've heard that Ovechkin has been pretty much nonexistent in these games.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
So... I might be a little behind, but did I hear correctly that Latvia beat Canada in Men's Hockey? Ouch.

I did not hear correctly, they haven't played yet.

No but Russia got eliminated by Finland. Which was a huge surprise to me.

Kinda glad, Datsyuk can give that knee of his another week of rest now.

Lol, Poor Russia... they tried so hard. I didn't see any of the game, but I've heard that Ovechkin has been pretty much nonexistent in these games.

Yeah. He scored a goal and assist in the first game, otherwise nothing.

Czech out that score! USA winning 4-1!

Latvia and Canada tied towards the end of the 2nd? Possible to see another upset today? That would be interesting.

Edit: Oh my... Latvia's goalie has been standing on his head. stopped 30 of 31 shots, while his team has only put 9 shot on net.

Oh wow. Canada is having some terrible luck indeed!

US up 5-2 on the Czech Republic.

Latvia and Canada still tied. Canada made me a liar, up by one.

We are all Latvians! Except you Canada.

Even Alpharius is a Latvian? Makes sense.

Latvia's goalie stopped 55 of 57 shots. Give that man a damn medal.

Jeezus. I'm positive Quick couldn't stop that many goals, especially against the Canadians.

Crazy performance by the Latvian goalie!

Still a little sketched on the disallowed goal. I know it didn't fully cross the line, but reaching in to cover it up and pull it back leaves me with a bit of a sour taste.

Either way, some great hockey!

 Blacksails wrote:
Crazy performance by the Latvian goalie!

Still a little sketched on the disallowed goal. I know it didn't fully cross the line, but reaching in to cover it up and pull it back leaves me with a bit of a sour taste.

Either way, some great hockey!

Should have been a penalty shot for sure. I've never understood why they have so many "non-reviewable" plays. Shouldn't getting it right come before worrying about embarrassing the referee?

 djones520 wrote:
Latvia's goalie stopped 55 of 57 shots. Give that man a damn medal.

He plays for the Syracuse Crunch, he's a minor leaguer... someone bring him up to the NHL.

 mega_bassist wrote:
Jeezus. I'm positive Quick couldn't stop that many goals, especially against the Canadians.

Yeah, we tend to have a lot of nightmare about European goaltenders... still smarting about the whole 2006 thing and losing to the Swiss thanks only to their goaltending.

 djones520 wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:
So... I might be a little behind, but did I hear correctly that Latvia beat Canada in Men's Hockey? Ouch.

I did not hear correctly, they haven't played yet.

No but Russia got eliminated by Finland. Which was a huge surprise to me.

Kinda glad, Datsyuk can give that knee of his another week of rest now.

I called this one before the games even started.

The Russians had a tonne of offensive potential, but their defense was abysmal (being almost exactly the same as it was 4 years ago when we utterly destroyed them 7-3 in quarters) and their goaltending sucked.
Why the feth they didn't start Bobrovsky I'll never know, as he was pretty much their only hope of ever advancing. Their coach is a grade-A dumba$$ for making that call.

Add to this that the Russians, even during their glory days of the Soviet Red Army never have played it as a proper team game, instead just giving specific jobs to every player and coaching them to only do that singular job. (hell, the '72 summit series wouldn't have been nearly so close if it wasn't for Tretiak's absolute brilliance in goal.)
The only reason they dominated for so long from the 50's through to the early 90's was simply because the tournament was heavily skewed in their favour, as Canada, US, Sweden & even the Finns to an extent were never able to send our best players since they were all in the NHL and thus ineligible to compete! (especially Canada/US)

The current hockey powers are still Canada, US, Sweden & Finland. Russia can pretend, but until they learn to play a proper team game they'll just be second fiddle to the big 4.
Mind you, Canada needs to stop putting all the European kids ahead of our own at the Junior levels, (namely at goaltending & defense), otherwise in another 8-10 years we're going to be a complete laughing stock...

 Alfndrate wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Latvia's goalie stopped 55 of 57 shots. Give that man a damn medal.

He plays for the Syracuse Crunch, he's a minor leaguer... someone bring him up to tjr NHL.

I think they mentioned the Lightning drafted him.

 djones520 wrote:
Latvia's goalie stopped 55 of 57 shots. Give that man a damn medal.

And some Gatorade.

Seriously, he looked like he could barely stand at the end.

 Eldarain wrote:

 Alfndrate wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Latvia's goalie stopped 55 of 57 shots. Give that man a damn medal.

He plays for the Syracuse Crunch, he's a minor leaguer... someone bring him up to tjr NHL.

I think they mentioned the Lightning drafted him.

Yup, the crunch are their minor league team.

Tampa already has Ben Bishop, who has been lights out this year, after his performance here, I bet there might be a team or two looking at Tampa willing to make some off season deals.

Overall a solid day for Canada!

We got away with a scare in the men's hockey, though in all honesty outside of the scoreboard the game was a complete farce as we simply dominated the play.
Losing Jonny T for the rest of the tournament sure sucks the big one though...

Both our men's & women's rinks advanced to the gold medal final in curling!!!

And in the women's 2-man bobsled we repeated as gold medal winners, also setting a new Olympic record as the first nation to have a team successfully defend their gold medal!


Here's hoping Jennifer Jones can work her magic tomorrow in the curling final! Go(ld) Canada!

I'll be honest, not a figure skating fan. But, a good old 'OMG WTF just happened there' with the women's figure skating finals. Think all of the commentators were pretty much stunned into silence by the result of Kim Yuna being 2nd, the young Russian being given the gold.

Shows what a difference the home-field advantage can make I suppose.

Bigger Choke Job?

The Russian Men's hockey team getting bounced out of the tournament to Finland.

or

The US Womens' Hockey team blowing a 2-0 lead with 3 minutes left and losing in OT?

 cincydooley wrote:
Bigger Choke Job?

The Russian Men's hockey team getting bounced out of the tournament to Finland.

or

The US Womens' Hockey team blowing a 2-0 lead with 3 minutes left and losing in OT?

The Russian's men's team, simply because their head coach was such a massive dumba$$, wanting to showcase the KHL players over the NHL'ers in order to prove that Russian hockey is superior to our North American game, AND, because he didn't start Bobrovsky in goal which even TSN's hockey panel is still struggling to try and explain...

The US may have been a better team skill-wise, but Canada has the experience of being in those do-or-die situations. The youth of the US team showed through there as their nerves got to them, while Canada was able to weather the early storm thanks to some amazing goaltending, and then settle the nerves down afterwards.



What's going to be interesting heading forwards is that a lot of our premier players are now retiring... We'll have some vets left, but a good chunk of the veteran leadership, (or rather all of it if Apps retires as well), will be gone.

Sorry 'Merica

Canada took advantage of that slipppp

I left the Women's gold medal game halfway through the second at 2-0, thinking we were done. Came back after some work to find we won! I'm kind of sad I missed it, sounds like a great game.

Sorry, forget to say sorry 'Murica.

Sortilege shots to celebrate anyone?

Well, because our rivalry isn't good enough with only being settled on the ice itself...

http://sports.ca.msn.com/winter-olympics/news/canada-usa-so-pumped-they-hit-sochi-street-hockey-style



Good to see so many of our athletes & friends over there getting into the spirit of the games!