Gold or Bust for Men’s Hockey

The 2010 Vancouver Olympics Men’s Hockey Tournament is in full swing.  After 2 days of competition, all 12 countries have gotten their feet wet.  As expected Canada and the USA had little problem dispatching Norway and Switzerland respectively.  Germany surprised Sweden by battling them to a very competitive 2-0 result which saw the Germans hit several goal posts behind Swedish goalie Henrik Lundqvist.  The Czech Republic ousted the rival Slovakia 3-1, and the Russians handled Latvia 8-2.

Canada started Roberto Luongo between the pipes against Norway and he subsequently posted a shutout on what was, expectedly, a quiet night for him in which he only faced a handful of dangerous shots.  Martin Brodeur, who is expected to be the Team Canada starter for the run of the tournament will start today, in what should be another tune-up type game, against the Swiss.  Although, your humble blogger is loathe to point out that the Swiss stunned Canada in Torino2006, and should not be taken lightly this time around.

Canada’s first game against Norway, which they won 8-0, saw the top line of Crosby, Nash, and Iginla light up Norway with Iginla notching a hat-trick.  This line looks deadly, with Crosby having 2 snipers to choose from in Nash and Iginla.  But then again, it was Norway.   The Swiss, no doubt, will put up a much bigger fight, but anything short of a convincing victory will leave fans wondering.  The 7th place finish in Torino still leaves a bitter taste in the collective mouth of Canadian hockey fans.

Team Canada coach Mike Babcock has been trying out different line combinations.  Initially, he had put Patrice Bergeron, who your humble blogger thinks shouldn’t even be on this team, on the top unit with Crosby and Nash.  Bizarre.  After the futile production that this line produced in the 1st period, Babcock promptly, and wisely, yanked Bergeron off the 1st line replacing him with Jerome Iginla who went on to score a hat-trick taking beautiful feeds from Sidney Crosby while looking dangerous on almost every shift.

Tonight’s game should provide a better idea of what Team Canada will look like moving forward.  The team has had a game to get to know each other a little bit, work out some special teams systems, figure out some line combinations, and will have their number one goalie, Martin Brodeur between the pipes.   Due to the short nature of this tournament, there is not a lot of time for teams to ‘gel’ or master checking systems.  This team needs to come together fast, and come together now.  We will see what they look like tonight against the Swiss.

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Sporting Vancouver’s Early Take on Olympics

In the past 3 days, your humble blogger has watched the opening ceremonies, lamented the loss of young Georgian Olympian Nodar Kumaritashvili,  tweeted about protesters and vandals, been to a rainy Cypress Mountain, and today watched Alexandre Bilodeau become the first Canadian to win Gold on home soil.

Let me start by saying that Sporting Vancouver extends sympathies and condolences to the family, friends, teammates, and countrymen of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.  May his courage be long remembered whenever and wherever future Olympics are held.

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Now onto the opening ceremonies, which, quite frankly, blew me away.  To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting too much.  I figured it would be ok.  You know, ok in the sense that we didn’t totally embarass ourselves in front of the world and we didn’t just have a bunch of lumberjacks chasing beavers in canoes while Quebecers traded maple syrup for pelts with First Nations Peoples in igloos…you know…the stereotypical stuff…maybe with a Celine Dion and/or Corey Hart performance sprinkled in.

No, it was certainly much more than ok.  Right from the video presentation of the snowboarder descending the mountain then appearing at the top of the BC Place Stadium and jumping through the Olympic rings to welcome the World to Vancouver, I knew this was not going to be a typical, outdated, safe, Canadian-style production.  No, this was new, cutting-edge, enthralling and fast-paced.  Just the perfect recipe for today’s attention-span-challenged young viewers.

K.D. Lang’s performance of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah was breath-taking.  She made the song her own.

Shane Koyczan’s performance of his poem “We Are More” wowed many people, including yours truly, as his twitter account instantly got 100s of followers.  If you haven’t heard or read it yet, do yourself a favour and follow the link above.

After watching Jen Heil take Silver in Ladies’ Moguls and Kristina Groves take Bronze at the long track speed skating oval, Canada was treated to a Gold Medal performance in Men’s Moguls tonight at Cypress Mountain.  Alexandre Bolideau, buoyed by his inspirational and determined brother Frederic, became the first Canadian ever to win a Gold Medal on home soil.  The reaction from coast to coast was huge.  Nowhere was this more evident than on the internet and through social media.  The terms “Alexandre Bolideau” and “Canada wins Gold” were trending for hours afterward and at the writing of this blog.

Yes we are only a few days into the 21st Olympiad here in Vancouver and already so much has happened–and hockey hasn’t even started yet!

It appears as though we are in store for a great show.

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Olympic Fever Grips City

Well, here it is.  Sporting Vancouver’s first (of what should be many) “Official Sporting Vancouver 2010 Olympic Blogs”.

With two days to go before the opening ceremonies this Friday February 12th, 2010, the city appears to be holding its collective breath.  The type of breath one would take before diving into deep waters.  This is it…its here.  The world has come to Vancouver.  Lights, camera, action.  The curtain comes up in a matter of hours…is the city ready?  Probably not…  Will it ever be ready?  Probably not…You see the thing with Vancouverites is we want to be a big city…but we don’t want traffic jams.  We want to have big, world class events…but just “not in my back yard”.  We want tourists to come here and spend millions of dollars….but we don’t want them jamming up our Starbucks and making us wait an extra eleven minutes for our non-fat, non-dairy, fair-trade, mocchajavalattespressoccino served in an eco-friendly, sustainable energy, renewable resource, bio-degradable cup with that oh-so-beautiful-and-status-ensuring Starbuck’s logo on it which we have to stir with our fingers because we’d have to chop down a tree for wood stir stix, re-usable spoons would have germs and would need to be washed in an electicity-guzzling dishwasher, and well…you can forget about plastic stir stix!!!

You see…Vancouver is a city where, in my humble opinion, common sense and democracy go to die.  It is a city where the vocal minority run the show.  Special interest groups ‘squeak’ very loudly in this city and, thus get most of the governmental ‘grease’.  This is why you will see many protesters around our fair city decrying the 2010 Vancouver Olympics as a waste of money…money that should have gone to give them free homes….not just any free homes…but free homes in downtown Vancouver, virtually the most expensive chunk of real estate in North America.

Anyways, I am getting off-topic…this is a sports blog after all.   I was acting like I was trying to get a gold medal in political griping.

I was on hand, behind the scenes at BC Place Stadium for the dress rehearsal for the opening ceremonies and was amazed by the amount of security present.  I am hoping that these Olympics will be a safe, and enjoyable event for all.  I am also hoping that all protesters will be free to demonstrate and voice their opinions democratically and not violently or destructively.

Its the calm before the storm.  We have two days to go, Vancouver.  Let’s tuck in our shirts, put on our faces, check our hair, pop those zits, and open the door to the world…after all, we want them all to come back and spend more money in the future…money we could use to buy ourselves free houses downtown.