Joanie Rochette hung onto third place to take the bronze medal in figure skating. Rochette skated with a heavy heart after the loss of her mother. Would be beyond me to know what difference the off-ice events had on the on-ice impact.
Canada remains in fourth, now with 17 medals and 8 of them gold. Only three countries have 8 gold medals. And speaking of gold …
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Congratulations to the Canadian women's hockey team, winning its third straight gold medal. The clincher was a 2-0 whitewash of the second-best team in the world, the United States.
The Canadian women didn't give up a single goal in the semifinals and finals. In the last two Olympics, the Canadian women's hockey team has given up 4 goals. And only one of those was a 5-on-5 goal — Switzerland in the third period this year. The Canadian women outscored their opponents in this tournament 48-2.
Marie-Philip Poulin, 18, scored both goals for Canada in the first period. Poulin went up high after the pass from Jennifer Botterill at 13:55 in the first. This came shortly after the Canadian defense stopped the U.S. on a 5-on-3 scenario.
A few minutes later, Poulin was on the face-off in the U.S. end just after Jinelle Zaugg-Siergiej got called for tripping in the other end of the ice. The face-off went off Meghan Agosta's stick back to Poulin, who fired a quick shot past U.S. goalie Jessie Vetter at 16:50 in the first period.
Meghan Agosta, who got an assist in Poulin's second goal, finished the tournament with 15 points, and was voted Most Valuable Player by journalists.
The Canadian defense was beyond spectacular. Besides the 5-on-3 they stopped in the first period, the U.S. had another 5-on-3 for 1:38 early in the second period.
And we have to mention the incredible performance by goalie Shannon Szabados, who stopped 28 shots and posted a 3-0 record in the tournament. Kim St. Pierre is the more experienced goalie, but Szabados had the hot hand and came up well when it counted.
This was a very even game: consider that Canada had 29 shots and the U.S. had 28 shots. The difference was Poulin, who may never have to buy a drink in her native Beauceville, Quebec — where the drinking age is 18.
The most memorable stat might be 16,805 — the attendance for the gold medal game. This was the biggest crowd yet in a tournament that drew a record 162,419. The five games at Canada Hockey Place drew over 16,000 fans each game. Most of the tournament was played at the much smaller UBC Thunderbird Arena, drawing crowds just under 5,500.
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The men's hockey team is suddenly the higher seed. The vision of the Canucks home ice featuring the Sedin twins shooting at Roberto Luongo in goal was crushed when Sweden lost to Slovakia 4-3 late on Wednesday.
Marian Hossa (Chicago Blackhawks) is one of the better known Slovak players, having played for Stanley Cup runners-up Pittsburgh and Detroit the last two years, along with last season's Norris Trophy winner 6'9" Zdeno Chara (Boston Bruins). Montréal goalie Jaroslav Halak may be the difference if Slovakia pulls off the upset. Slovakia upset Russia in the first round in a shootout win.
The U.S. plays Finland at 3 pm Eastern; Canada at Slovakia at 9:30 pm. CTV carries both games. NBC carries the U.S. game live coast-to-coast, and CNBC carries the nightcap game.
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Stephen Colbert finishes up his coverage in Vancouver. Colbert had a "Cheer Up Canada" video after deriding them for not owning the podium. After ending the video with the U.S. beating Canada, Colbert apologized again and took "Canadian Iceholes" off the On Notice board. Colbert had place them there when the Vancouver Olympic folks were accused of preventing the U.S. team from practicing in Olympic facilities.
To start the show, Stephen said, "I've got Olympic Fever. Either that, or I ate some really bad poutine."
Snowboarding gold medal winner Seth Wescott was interviewed in the outdoors setting. Colbert came out with a snowboard with his own likeness on it.
Wescott got a cheer from the Canadian crowd when he said he refused to meet with George W. Bush after winning gold in Torino in 2006.
The first object that resemble a snowboard was invented by Sherman Poppen in 1965 and was called the Snurfer (combination of Snow Surfer) The snurfer was fairly simple and had no bindings, what is called a noboard. However the state of Utah claims that the first snowboards were developed and manufactured there in the early 1970s, and was commemorated in 2007 by the United States mint among the three semi-final designs of the Utah state quarter. At least one source believes that Jake Burton Carpenter (founder of Burton Snowboards) and/or Tom Sims (founder of Sims Snowboards) invented snowboarding.
Posted by: jers | April 09, 2010 at 05:31 PM