I missed the Canada v. Slovakia game. Anyone get to see it? Was Canada that good? Slovakia that bad? How was the tempo? I would think that with those two teams, the game would flow pretty good.
I watched the US v. Russia game and will post my take on it a little later.
No offense to you, as you clearly have a greater knowledge of hockey than me, but I find these two statements at odds. Having watched The Sweden vs. Finland game it looked like two teams “going for it”. When would you say the fine line gets crossed between “going for it” and “sloppy”?
Another question for you Greenback and for any other Hockey aficionado. Would you prefer the “World Cup” return to it’s roots and be the “Canada Cup” again? I hear people making this argument and I find it compelling. Play the games all in one country, have them all be meaningful, unlike the round robin games in this series (hello Czechs!) and make the final best of three.
In conclusion, I’m really looking forward to the remaining games. Can Kiprussoff stonewall a finally charging defending champion? Will Canada vs Czech be the incredible game it seems like it’ll be, or will the Czechs no show? I just hope work permits me to watch these games! (I’ll for sure miss the stupidly scheduled final. :mad: )
Just to clarify: I said that the highlights made it look sloppy.
But to answer your question, I think that a game goes sloppy when it moves from hockey to a game of shinny, or when things are not clicking. To give an example of the latter, when the game has few crisp passes and scoring chances are generated more by a bouncing puck than anything else. This can be exciting as you never know what is going to happen, but I don’t find these games enjoyable to watch. From what little I saw, the Sweden v. Finland game did not have this problem. Secondly, regarding when a game turns to shinny. Both teams may be going for it but the highlights showed terrible defensive mistakes resulting in open scoring chances. Again, this is very exciting to watch but I would rather see a player earn his chance by beating a defender than by having the defender off in the wrong spot due to a brain cramp.
Almost every hockey game has times when the sloppiness occurs, but I find the game more enjoyable to watch when the sloppiness is kept to a minimum. But again, I only watched the highlights so it could be that the game was played far better than the snippits that I saw seemed to indicate and I came to an unjustified conclusion.
The World Cup going back to its roots? I haven’t heard about this. I didn’t think it was a big deal but there are changes to the format I would like to see.
I agree that the tournament should be held in a single host country, like the World Juniors or FIFA World Cup (please correct if I am wrong).
Have all games be meaningful. What does this entail? I was thinking that all eight teams should be in a single pool with a round robin but only the top four teams advance to the elimination round. The semi finals would be best of one while the final being best of three. I definately don’t like the fact that all teams advance.
The Fins should give the US a good run and, while I am pulling for the Fins, I have to give the edge to the US. But it is a best of one and Kipper can steal a game at any time. I’m looking forward to finally seeing the Fins play.
I hope that the Czechs show up but I don’t think it will be enough but this looks like it will be a great game. The Czechs will most likely try and play something like a trap system while Canada, to this point, has preferred a puck pursuit game.
As an aside, does anyone else think that the Czechs and Slovaks should reunite their countries for the sake of hockey. The team they could put together would be incredible :eek:
Yes.
Slovakia tried to play tight disciplined defensive hockey from the get go. I guess the game plan was to keep Canada off the board, and maybe score once or twice off of mistakes. It worked for the first period, and then the floodgates opened. Mario, Joe, and Jarome finally started clicking and the Slovaks started making mistakes under the pressure. Basically, they were just outgunned.
Great game going on right now between US and Finland. In the third period now.
I LOVE CBC!! Fight, fight!
Go Amonte! Smack that Numminen!
Meanwhile, ABC’s got football…yawn*
The Finns advance to the Finals?? You must be Jokinen!
But seriously, they played their blonde little tushies off, well done!
Well, that was decidedly not an aesthetically pleasing display of Canadian hockey superiority. 6 seconds? Are you kidding me?
I’ll take the win, but that was ugly.