Italy's Hockey Team (Especially Their Goalie) Put Up One of The Most Valiant Efforts You'll See All Olympics in Their Opening Game vs Sweden
I watched the Italy vs Sweden hockey game yesterday from start to finish. The plan was to let it run in the background as I blogged. I figured I'd barely pay it any mind as Sweden was bound to hang a damn near a 50 burger on the Italian hockey club. Sweden has a real chance to win the gold medal after all. Italy on the other hand... well I barely even knew Italy had a hockey team. The only reason they're in the Olympics is because they're the host country. As far as hockey games go, mismatches don't come more drastic than Italy vs Sweden.
A $200 bet on Sweden yesterday would have paid out $1. They were -20000 favorites vs an Italy team with zero current or former NHL players. Sweden on the other hand... their entire team plays in the NHL. William Nylander, Rasmus Dahlin, Adrian Kempe, and some of the other best players in all of hockey.
Team Italy was on home ice. They had the fans behind him. Any non-Swedish person watching that game would have loved to see Italy pull off the miracle upset. Still, nobody gave the boys in blue in chance. But in front of a raucous crowd of Italians, Team Italy played their asses off. Despite eventually losing the game 5-2 when things got away from them late in the 3rd period, they gave one of the more admirable performances you'll see all Olympics. In any event.
Here's the full highlight on YouTube, since the Olympics insist on making their content as inaccessible as possible on social media.
Nobody had a more impressive performance yesterday than Italy's starting goalie Damian Clara. He's the first Italian born hockey player to EVER be drafted into the NHL. And he was given an impossible task. I mean look at this shit. This was the real shot count at one point in that game.
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He was swallowing pucks all night long. Letting up no rebounds. Making incredible saves to keep Italy in the game. He played his ass off, logging a save a minute for the first 46 minutes of play. Until he literally pushed himself beyond his body's limits on this breakaway save and was forced to leave the game. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was a groin injury.
And for a team as overmatched as Italy, they didn't just park the bus and block shots all night long. They were outshot 60-20. But 20 shots isn't nothing. All game long, you had the feeling Sweden would eventually pull away. But despite being greatly outmanned at every position, Italy was able to capitalize on Sweden's mistakes and earn themselves some quality chances. When Sweden went up 2-1, and everybody thought the flood gates were about the open, Italy scored again to tie it up. They forced Sweden's goalie Filip Gustavsson to make big saves in a 1 goal game in the latter half of the 3rd period. The fact that Italy was able to get Sweden to that point is an amazing feat.
I just hope Italy's team took a moment to turn around on the bench for a picture when they had a 1-0 lead on Sweden. Lee Corso style.
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Italy has two more games in group play this Olympics. Friday morning they play Slovakia. Saturday morning they play Sweden. Two more games vs a bunch of NHL players, where they'll be about as big of underdogs as they were today.
From there, they will likely be the 12-seed matched up with the 5-seed in the first round of the knockout stage. Unless of course they can pull off another miracle in the group stage. But this time actually win the hockey game. If Italy can somehow do that in front of their home crowd (possibly with their backup goalie), it would be an all-time Olympic moment.
Go Italy. We're all rooting for you. Unless you wind up playing the United States. Then you can go to hell.