NHL • Olympics

Snarks On Ice: The NHL In Torino

Sweden 6, Switzerland 2
You’d think the Swiss would have been a bit more fired up for this game after Swedish coach Bengt-Ake Gustafsson declared them dead meat, saying his team should lose their final match against Slovakia to be matched up with an easier opponent. Too bad for the Swedes they won, because now they have to play a strong Czech Republic team.

United States 3, Finland 4
Team USA was once again terribly overmatched as they were bounced out of the finals. Finland, better known to their countrymen as Team Suomi, took a 2-1 lead in the opening period on goals by Ville Peltonen and Sami Salo (Vancouver Canucks), then opened the lead wider after the first intermission on two goals by Olli Jokinen (Florida Panthers). A goal for the US by Brian Gionta (New Jersey Devils) in the third barely made the match interesting.

Canada 0, Russia 2
Wayne Gretzky, you’ve got some ’splaining to do. Team Canada, the heavy favorite coming into the Olympics, failed to score a goal in three of the six games they played. Evgeni Nabokov (San Jose Sharks) had 33 saves for the Russians.

Czech Republic 3, Slovakia 1
Chalk up an upset of sorts for the Czech Republic, considering Slovakia went 5-0 in the Group B round robin tourney. Of course, Group B included such powerhouses as Team USA, Kazakhstan, and Latvia, so maybe their undefeated mark wasn’t such a stretch.

On Tap Friday
Finland (6-0-0) vs. Russia (5-1-0)
Czech Republic (3-3-0) vs. Sweden (4-2-0)

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