Well At Least One USA Hockey Team Will Be Playing For Olympic Gold
I think at this point we can all kind of agree that the US Men’s team has been an unmitigated disaster so far in PyeongChang. That game against Russia on Saturday morning showed that they just don’t quite have what it takes for this tournament. They have young guys with speed and skill but who make young guy mistakes. They have older guys who play a smart brand of hockey but don’t have that speed or skill in order to be difference makers. You’d hope that the two types of players on this team would compliment each other but yeah, just hasn’t happened.
But instead of wallowing around in sadness and despair over the fact that we could have been watching Eichel and Matthews and Kessel score 500 goals per game in South Korea, let’s talk about the US women’s team who will be playing for gold after murdering Finland 5-0 in the semifinals.
The first time women’s hockey was played at the Olympics was 1998 in Nagano. Team USA won the gold over Canada that year but in the 4 Winter Olympics since then, Canada has taken home the gold (USA has gone silver, bronze, silver and silver during those tournaments). Obviously they’ll be playing against Canada again this year for the gold.
The US has already played Canada in PyeongChang this year and lose 2-1 last Thursday. Just a minor setback for a major comeback. Because despite the fact that the Canadians have won 4 straight gold medals, here’s a fun little state that nobody can rebuke. Team USA is undefeated in women’s hockey Olympic gold medal games that are played in Asia. The Canadian team? Well they quite literally have never once won a women’s hockey Olympic gold medal game being played in Asia. They’ve won twice in North America (Salt Lake City & Vancouver). They’ve won twice in Europe (Turin & Sochi). Well–at least I’m pretty sure that Sochi is Europe and not Asia. I’m gonna go ahead and just make a judgement call that Sochi is a European city even if it’s technically on the border.
But yeah. 20 years ago the US women’s team won Olympic gold in Asia against the Canadians. Now on Wednesday, just 20 years and 4 days after winning gold for the first time, the US women’s team is going to win Olympic gold in Asia again. So sure, maybe the men’s tournament was a disappointment this year as far as the American team goes. That doesn’t mean that we all can’t get blackout drunk on Wednesday and get high off of Patriotism for the women’s team. As long as one jersey says “USA” on the front and the other sweater has a maple leaf on it, that’s more than enough reason to get fired up. See everybody then.