Spen

From what little I paid attention to spring training it has been rough. However I still fully expect this team to be better than they have been in a long time.

Heck of a football player from the many accounts I have heard over the years. I barely knew him as a player, but enjoyed him growing up on such shows as "Little House" and "Father Murphy".

They should have put Feds on defense, he couldnt have done any worse than some of them.

I think Russia shot itself in the foot by having so many KHL players on the team in an effort to show they were as good as NHL players. They failed. Even beyond that, I think for the most part the Russians havent produced defensemen or physical players the way some other countries have. Markov and Gonchar are good, but after that it gets thinner and thinner. Also Nabokov was not good that night, I think he is a good goalie but I dont think he can steal a game from a team very often. If I was the Russians I would do all I could to see that Sochi has international sized ice, not NHL sized. Its been an amazing few years for the US team. Even in 98 and the World cup in 96, and probably more recently there were a number of "American" players who had dual citizenship and played for the US, some it was alleged tried out for the US teams as juniors because they knew the Canadian team was not interested. Now the US is producing quality players all on its own, I think Paul Statsny is the only dual citizen that played for the US this past Olympics.

No one has ever called me that before. Thats going to destroy my reputation.

I see the logic there but a possible false accuser could as well. As for the bars he goes to and the company he keeps, I have heard from Pittsburgh fans that Ben hangs out at college bars early and often. So it would seem he would prefer ease and quantity over quality. And there is nothing wrong with that, though perhaps because I am a bit older a successful 27 year old trolling for college chicks seems a little odd to me.

The World Juniors championship gold game a couple months ago was a fantastic game!

LOL I saw that the other night. No high fives then.

The Ravens made a bold move to improve their passing game, trading for Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin. It is believed the Ravens sent third- and fourth-round picks to the Cardinals in exchange for Boldin and a fifth-round pick. According to ESPN, Boldin has agreed to a new four-year, $28 million contract. http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/bal-boldin0305,0,766836.story

"these hats on the ice are delaying the game!" lol Dont forget the frequent diving from his first couple years, though I admit he has stopped that some what. I agree with both of those statements but the main reason it bothers me is because the efforts of the rest of his team and of the US team will pretty much be forgotten by the media in their effort to promote Crosby. He is the Canadian press darling boy, and has been years before he was even drafted, and they will go overboard on this and in the US the NHL promotion department (which does an awful job) only know how to promote one or two players so it will get tons of press here too. His resume speaks for itself. He is a great player, and seems like a nice guy even though he rarely looks to be having any fun. I really don't dislike him. I just get tired of the hero worship of him (similar to Brady and Mannings in NFL) and I dont think he is the best player in the league. But since the Canadian press has touted him since he was 12, and he is Canadian (thats the most important thing - if he was exactly the same player but from Russia or the US they would pick apart his game pick another one to be the best) I dont expect anything to change.

Crosby is a great player, though admittedly not my favorite, but he really didnt play that well today. Now that he scored that goal, which was an impressive time to do it, we'll hear about it forever. No one in the media will remember how well the rest of the plates did. The US really had a good tournament, to have the youngest team and win silver is impressive. I was really impressed by Parise, he was awesome.

Great job by the US! At the start of the tournament it was thought any medal would be good for this US squad to win so losing in OT is still a great feat. Just why did it have to be fucking Crosby......

MSNBC got tricked yesterday. They thought they were interviewing US goalie Ryan Miller who said things like "we knew that Canada and Russia were way over rated" and "that team we beat today we knew we would" and "I pretty much guarantee that we'll win gold Sunday" but it was an imposter. The last part made me laugh, why wouldn't the impostor at least guarantee gold? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/26/ryan-miller-prank-call-ms_n_479167.html

I'll play.

I think it was a freeway.

I never saw this coming. I thought this game could go either way.

Congrats to Slovakia, they upset Sweden. I think Canada will kill them. This is the second time recently that Sweden was upset allowing Canada a much easier path to the gold medal game. In 2002 Sweden lost to Belarus, who at the time were not as good as they are now, when goalie Tommy Salo let one in off his head late in the game. (they were using international rules time-keeping so the clock was counting up not down, so it was a big mistake) I am happy for Slovakian goalie Jaroslav Halak, he is the goalie for my favorite team. So its US vs Finland and Slovakia vs Canada on Friday.

Hey, I'm postong this as I dribe! At least Im not drinling!

Darn, I was hoping the Russians would win. I expected Canada to win, but didnt expect it to be so easy.

I too am really happy with the effort they had today. They really gave up their bodies to block shots. The offense wasnt bad, Hiller was still on fire. Plus we were just a .10 of a second too late one time and hit the post the two other times.

I hate these types of games. The US is outplaying the Swiss and we have 18 shots to their 4. Sometimes it seems if a goalie is watching too long he gets cold and lets a bad one in. I'd prefer us to score soon!

LOL the geniuses at NBC finally have a little excitement in their hockey coverage (and good ratings for the game Sunday) so they decide to tape delay todays game on the west coast. Tape delaying might have worked 15-20 years ago, but there are so many places to follow along now (or watch online) it should be an outdated practice now. Of course this means NBC will be doing for 20 more years.

Im worried about Switzerland! Their goalie Hiller (an Anaheim Duck) is playing great. I hope they are tired from todays OT game. Either way I think the US has to play better than they did Sunday though one should think the US should beat them. No upsets today (though Norway is tied with Slovakia as I type this which could be big) but some great games. Latvia really showed a lot of heart tying up the heavily favored Czechs late in the game to take it to OT where they lost. Czechs look beatable al the sudden. Swiss beat Belarus in OT and Canada destroyed Germany.

It certainly is a young team with, when the team was chosen at least, seemed to have some odd choices on it. So far its working out and hopefully it continues. We were fortunate with some pretty poor defense at times. Its probably because a number of defensemen chosen were hurt and had to be replaced in the weeks before. The US did win Silver in 2002 so they have been recently competitive. The funny part of the seedings is that we cannot play Canada again until the gold medal game. Also if Canada beats Germany on Tuesday they will play Russia on Wednesday, which many thought was going to be the gold medal game. This means one of the two favorites will go home with no medal at all. Kesler got the empty net which sealed the deal. I am sure his 'home' crowd loved seeing that and cheered for him.

It was a fun game, the extra day off will come in handy with so many games in a short period of time. The look and feel of this game was similar to a NHL playoff game. In years past with the bigger ice surface (this year they use a NHL sized rink) I dont think you could say that. That led to some people watching teams skate beautifully up and down the ice at the Olympics then turning on an NHL game and seeing a more crowded and slower game and perhaps being disappointed. The flip side is there was far less hitting in the Olympic games on the bigger ice. My one complaint is I think the network/commentators are exaggerating the degree of upset this game.