As the Olympics continued in Vancouver, our hockey team continued to tune up for Sunday's big match, while our curling team continued to stink it up.
#1: US strong against Norway, becoming favorite for Sunday? The Americans really needed to play large in their first two hockey games, with Canada coming at them in game three. Mission accomplished. A 6-1 victory against Norway has improved our boys to 2-0 in round robin play, as we outshot the Norwegians 39-11. Remember, this US team went 1-4 in Torino. The exciting thing about this game was the way it was closed out. Three goals in the final six minutes for the US, with Brian Rafalski netting two in the final 3. Even (yuck) Patrick Kane got in the action. It was a nice way to follow up our 3-1 in over the Swiss, and after watching the Canadians having to win a shootout to beat the very same Swiss, I'm feeling pretty good about Sunday's super match.
#2: US men's curling is hurting at 0-4 after extra end loss to the Danes. It's almost as if we're following a script. We play an okay game, get a chance to toss a game winning rock, and skip John Shuster misses the final shot. It seems like it happened it each of the first three games and it happened against Denmark yesterday. It's getting so bad that Karen is actually rooting against the US because she doesn't think we even deserve to be in Vancouver. She has a pretty good point. After 6 ends, we were up 5-3, tossing well, and it looked like we were headed to our first win by beating the winless Danes. Oh, how cruel a game curling is. Denmark scored a single point in the seventh. eighth, and the tenth, while the Americans earned just a single point in the ninth. So, it may look bad that we were forced into an extra end, but not really. We had the hammer going into the 11th, the final stone, which all but guaranteed a win. With the Danes lying one, skip John Shuster only needed to knock a Danish stone out of the house, and leave his thrown stone somewhere in there. Instead, Shuster simply bumped the Danish stone closer to the button, handing the Scandinavians the victory. In the stands, Shusters family looked ready to give him up for adoption. He's throwing stones at 70% on the tournament, which is last on the squad. Just like that, we're 0-4. Tonight we go against France, as we continue to try and stop the bleeding.
#3: US Women really follow suit, also losing to the Danes 6-7. Like brother, like sister. The American women also went against Denmark yesterday, and also continued their losing ways, dropping to 0-3 after a regulation 6-7 loss to the Danes. After being up 4-2 halfway through the match, the US watched the Danes get one in the sixth, and the allowed them to completely blow the game open with 3 stones counting toward the score. That pretty much sealed the deal. Skip Debbie McCormick was just 66% accurate in the game, the lowest on the team. The girls take on Russia the morning, which I'm watching right now, and we're tied at 1 after 4 ends.
#4: American Evan Lysacek wins gold in men's free skate. Thanks to my 6 week old son wanting to be awake from 3:45-5:15 am, I got to watch the early morning (or late night) replay if the primetime skating event. Despite being the current world champion, Evan Lysacek shocked Vancouver by earning the gold medal over Russian Yevgeny Plushenko. Despit pulling off the amazing quadruple jump, Plushenko was shaky on many of his easier jumps' landings, and that was enough to shake him one step down the podium. Two things struck me about this event: 1) Johnny Weir is no longer the US skating mega star and 2) Men's figure skating isn't nearly as exciting as women's or pairs.
#5: UK's Amy Williams sets Whistler skeleton record. We may not be at the medal point of skeleton, but things are still getting exciting. Williams flew down the sliding track at 143.3 KPH (77.37 MPH), finishing with a time of 53.83 seconds to set the Vancouver record. She's pumped for the opportunity to bring the Brits a medal in Brandon's favorite winter sport.
LSF's "What 2 Watch 4 2night": Sweden and Belarus go head to head on the hockey rink at Noon on MSNBC, US curling goes against France at 2pm on CNBC to try and get to 1-4, and primetime on the big network we have the start of the very exciting ice dancing, skeleton, and ski jumping.
Medal count: The US leads with 18, with Germany sitting at 11, Norway at 8, and Canada and France each with 7.
Enjoy day 8.
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