Host Dave Thorvald with Dan Funboy wrap up the Men’s and Women’s hockey tournaments from Torino 2006 in this enhanced podcast with pictures. Topics include team leadership, puck possession, tactical strategies, tournament surprise teams, and a bit of looking ahead to 2010.

Download: Hockey Tournament Wrap-up with Dave and Dan
Olympic Outsider podcast #6 (25:46, 15MB, .mp3)

Photo by Scales via Flickr, arted up by author

Alt version: Olympic Outsider Episode 6 – Hockey Tournament Wrap-up (m4a)

Quick wrap-up from the preliminary round of the Men’s hockey tournament with Dave Thorvald and Toadler from upstairs.  Plus bold predictions for the quarter-final round and a wee bit of history tossed in.

Download: Quarter-final Hockey Predictions
Olympic Outsider podcast (.mp3, 10:14, 14MB)

Well after the euphoria of Day Seven, Day Eight was a bit of a reality check after a variety of disappointments and underwhelming performances.  Day Nine though is shaping up nicely despite the being down 2-0 to Finland after 1 period.

A few notes:

Men’s Hockey loses to Suisse

For a loss, oddly this one didn’t hurt all that much. Switzerland played their guts out and scored another huge victory.  I won’t go on cause i blogged live during the game, but the short version is, … Way to go Switzerland for stepping it up and (with your 2 huge wins) welcome to the big leagues.

Men losing to Finland

Underway now in the second which must be better than the first in which Canada stood around and watched Finland put on a clinic in team play, skill and hustle.  I am bit peeved right now so will hold my tongue in anticipation of a spirited comeback.

Speed Skating

Jeremy is broken… a lackluster performance in the 1000m makes me wonder why the announcers are even asking Wotherspoon if he plans to come back for 2010 cause the way he performed at this games (and last for this matter) is just weak and not worthy of the slot if he is not commited to massive clutch improvement.  Sorry man, i am a fan and cheer for you every race but I am done.  Build the oval in Richmond and let’s get some youngsters training to take the torch.

Cindy Klaussen however is better than expected with 3 medals already, the most recent, a Silver in 1000m with her fave 1500m still to go. (The adorable) Timmer from Netherlands won Gold and (the scandalously sultry) Anni Freisinger scoring Bronze.

Bobsleigh

Fun to watch, the sleds are cool (note: all sleds must weigh the same with riders on board which is what you want heavy guys who can run fast so they can push the heavy sled, rather than skinny fast guys who would have to push a heavier sled, dig?).

Veteran Pierre Leuders and partner Lascelles Brown (welcome to Canada bro) did not disappoint with improvements each run including the final runs in the evening with snow falling – great scenes and great Silver medal finish.  Canada 2 sled finished 10th if i recall correctly, boding well for 2010.

Ski Jumping

I only saw clips but i love this sport, so graceful to watch (as i posted to Boris’s blog, re: fave from SLC, “Ski jumping, which should be called Ski Falling, blew my mind – the massive size of the hill, the wee-ness of the skiiers and the gracefullness of the whole routine.  One second the jumper is a speck atop a masive tower, and a blink later, the skier is sliding to a stop next to you in a puffy suit, after a controlled fall that must feel like a flying for a hour when you are doing it.”)

Again with a ski jump somewhere besides Calgary, this is a sport which Canada could improve in in future games.  Young Read (nephew of Ken) finished like 30th so not to bad.

Curling

The people’s champion in Italy – curling is scoring huge rating in the bocce-enthusastic country.  The Italian men beat Canadian men to put pressure on their hopes of making the playoffs.  Ditto for the Women who also dropped to 4-3 to Japan but then came back today with a win against Italy as did the men who beat up on New Zealand.  So both rinks are looking solid to advance to the playoff.

Alpine Skiing

Great performances by skiing legends Aamodt and Meier kept Eric Guay off the podium after he turned in a great run after being questionable due to a leg injury.  He took an injection and skiied his guts out and sat fourth til the Herminator did his usual dominant run (if he doesn’t crash, he medals it seems) – way to go 4th place for Guay though.

Other CDN Super G’ers were a bit hosed since they had to re-ski due to weather issues.  After the first run, our lads were sitting well but after the race was called, their runs on the restart didn’t merit medals.  The guy who was really pissed was the Frenchman who was sitting first after the cancelled run and botched his 2nd misses a gate and squirrelling down the hill in obvious anger and crashed through the exit area hollering epiphets to the worldwide audience.

Other news

Austria cross country ski team got shook down by the Italain fuzz in a early morning raid which seems selective and fishy to me.  That didn’t stop, CBC heel Terry Liebel from asking Beckie Scott and Sarah Renner about it over and over again (shut the hell up woman!).

In other hockey games, … Slovakia continues to roll winning over Kazakhs, Russia is on track and beating up on Lativa (whoa re out of gas) and the USA is still scrambling after losing to Sweden who are trying to find consistency.

All for now, heading to Whister for tubing after game.  Go Canada!

Dropping in with some thoughts, comments, … coming in briefly cause so much going on!

Skating away with medals

The Canadian Men and Women both earned Silver in a brand-new event – Long-track Speed-skating Team Pursuit relay.  Two teams of 3 skaters start at opposite sides of track and race around 5 times or so.  The clock stops when the third skater crosses so some team dynamics, drafting come into play.

The Women (3 skaters per race, but may alternate through 5 team members during heats) lost to the strong Germans led by the legendary Claudia Pechstein (this is her 8th Olympic medal), along with Annie Freisinger and Daniela Anschuetz Thoms (sniff and i knew her when she was just Daniela Anschuetz).

The men went down to a Italian team skating on mission in front of the home fans.  Cool event and did anyone even notice Canada does well at new sports in the Olympics (freestyle, short track, …)?

Last night (or yesterday it is too hard to tell), Short Track Speed skater (the affable) Anouk Leblanc-Boucher won a bronze in a gutsy race in which she started in the outside and battled Chinese skater for position and stood strong against her body checks.  The Silver medalist (Evgenia Radanova of Bulgaria) lifted her skate while going over the line so may be DQ’ed in which case, the Canadian in 4th place will move up a notch after the challenge is reviewed.

Also on the short track, the Men moved on to the Finals in the 5000m relay.  They led throughout and, when the Korean team went down, pulled away from Germany.  The Koreans went super-speed and made up most of their lost time passing Germany for 2nd place and a spot in the finals tomorrow (4 teams, 3 of them get medals – US and China are the other 2).

Hey, even figure skater Jeffery Buttle (who had perhaps the least froofy costume) came away with a bronze to pad Canada’s stats.

We Canadians are Sliders too

Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards won the bronze medal in Skeleton (see another new sport). Heck Lindsay Alcock finished 10th – i smell a sweep in 2010.  but really, this is a sport which Canada will improve in from the 2010 legacy since athletes won’t have to go to Alberta to try being a Sketathlete.  I want to try once (perhaps on a padded course ).

Hockey Upsets and Canada Rolling

Canada did not take Germany lightly and came away with a strong win over an German club much inproved since SLC. They still play a conservative style but no where near as slow and plodding a game as the match in Provo in 02.  Some great play but Canadian forwards but still losing a lot of one-on-one battles that will cost goals against more talented teams.  The team is sending lots of long passes and tricky pasing plays in deep which will hopefully get the squad in a ryhthm as the tourney heats up.

Finland rolled over Italy 6-0 making that 2 straight shut-outs (beat Swiss 5-0 yesterday) for the pesky Finns.  Selanne had a couple of beauties and Italy seemed (from the brief high-lights i saw) out of jam from yesterday’s bout with Canada.

Sweden was killed by a Russian team likely embarraessed by yesterday’s loss to the Slovaks.  5-0 was the final if i recall correctly.  Curious to see how Sweden responds after a strong win in their first game vs the Kazakhs followed by a crushing loss in second- could be tough for a team looking for positive emotion to build on. BTW, both Sedins scored in game 1.

The big news (besides Latvia tying the USA) is The Swiss (led by great goal-tending by David Aebischer) beat the mighty Czechs 3-2.  This will just wake the Czechs up after likely losing Hasek for the tourney.  Vokoun struggled and the team was simply outworked when it mattered (esp PK) and  despite being very outshot, came away with the biggest win in that country’s hockey history.

Finally, the Slovaks beat Latvia in what appeared to be an exciting game.  Slovakia got uip early but Latvia kept clawing back but finally the offessive stars of the Slovak squad got enough pucks at Irbe that the little big man was beat with a final of 6-3.

Remember that goal-differential is the tie breaker so right now Finland with 11 GF and 0 GA would beat Canada’s identical 2W 0L record and their 12 GF but 3 GA.

Bertuzzi, Nash, Richards and Sakic particularly caught my eye and Lounogo seemed a little unsteady (besides that crazy out of net play).  Major ups to Wade Redden for the big save and big goal – he is smiling all day i bet.

The Swiss are next for the Canucks after a day off (they’lll probably go watch curling).

Oh yeah Steve Moore, you are *really* helping yourself with the Valentine’s day lawsuit.  Any sympathy the public had for your whining has run out now, have a nice life.

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