Who still remembers the olympic tournament in February, now that all national leagues are back in business? Let's go back memory lane and revisit some key moments.
The expectations first. Games in Canada, the motherland of hockey. Massive pressure to keep the gold in Vancouver. Last two world championships went for Russia. Last olympics' gold to Sweden after total North American nosedive. It was time to get back in track. Biggest bets of course for Canada and Russia, dark horses USA and maybe Sweden looming in the background.
The first round was difficult for most. The big names scratched and clawed against lesser hockey nations like Swizerland and Norway. There even was an odd loss here and there for the big names. NHL veteran -heavy Slovakia beating Russia or fresh and hungry USA beating Canada can't really be seen as major upsets. It just tells more about the nature of one game dynamics and the difficulty of putting the team together from even the best pieces. However, the number one favorite Canada played so lazy that they ended up in the extra playoff round. The actual round was easy but the win in that game booked a quarter final matchup against the "planned" final opponent, Russia.
The highest expectations for this game and the flattest of outcomes ever. Russians weren't able to get their game together at all and Canada's straightforward style and more professional approach turned this into a onesided show. And not much of that either, since the game was over already in the first. Russia out.
Slovakia then took out Sweden and their hopes of defending the gold. Swedes were momentarily dazzling but somehow seemed to run out of time. Finland managed the top performance of the whole games on the quarters against Czech Republic. An evenly matched game with skills versus grind. Solid defence and great goaltending got Finns to the medal rounds. USA cruised to victory its "easy game" against Swizerland and were lucky to not get upset by the lazy attitude. No one had the brightest understanding on the power balance going into the semis.
Canada saved some energy in disposing the worn out Slovaks while USA knocked out Finland in the first round (period) and concentrated on skating practices for the next two. Easily the top two going for gold and the semifinal losers trying to motivate themselves for bronze.
Eventually Finland had the legs for the whole three periods in the bronze game and ended the tournament on a high note. Winning the last game, having the medals and finishing on third in the tournament of all the best. Not bad.
Luckily for the Oplympic hockey, the final was what it was. Just an amazing hockey game. With very evenly matched teams of first line and defence pair stars from Canada and young, powerful, fast and ambitious role players from USA. As a hockey fan it was just pure entertainment. The ability to play just perfectly every situation by Canadians and the fear nothing, trust yourself style of the US players. Just fantastic. At one point I believed Canada had it all together. No penalties, surgical scoring, always on the balance. By the end of the game, Americans just pounded their fast attacks to the Canadian end and got the equalizing goals. Overtime was just the cherry on top. Well, not literally for me, since my game recording cut off about 5 minutes in the overtime. However, I dug the championship goal from the internet and that wasn't much of a detail in this great game. The best game I've seen in a long while.
I sure hope NHL decision makers stop fumbling and declare that Alex Ovechkin can take all the other stars with him in the games in Sochi instead of going awol. Can there be better promotional event for the whole game and thus its biggest market, NHL, than the biggest event of 2014? How can there be a debate at all? We'll, let's not get into details on who knows about life outside their backyard and who not. Go, international hockey, go!
A tip for national team GMs: There might be a somewhat easy gold to be taken in this year's world championships after the opympics hangover..
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