So I Was Wrong. Go Figure.

Alright, so that legendary showdown I was predicting between the Canadians and Russians didn't quite exactly come to pass. Much to my surprise, the outrageously talented Russians decided they simply didn't feel like playing, while the Canadians finally realized they're an almost unfair combination of skill and strength that can't be trifled with.

Somewhere, Don Cherry is smiling.

Not only did the Canadians smack the Russians around but good, they may have finally found the groove we've all been waiting for them to display. As I've said all along, this is easily the most talented team in the tournament, but for the opening round Canada appeared to struggled at times and took a while to get its offense rolling against lesser teams like Norway or Germany.

Last night Canada was an efficient machine that would steamroll any team it came across. Reports of its demise were outrageously premature, and if the Canadians keep rolling, I can't see how they don't win gold on Sunday. As I now have a feeling we're in for a USA-Canada rematch on Sunday, this doesn't sit too well with me.

And speaking of the USA, they advanced to a semifinal match against Finland with another gritty performance, and while it may at first seem as though the U.S. underperformed against the Swiss, whose roster does not compare talent-wise with any other team in the quarterfinals, the one wild card is always a hot goaltender, and as I said yesterday, Jonas Hiller is good enough to steal a game. And with the exception of a bizarre and lucky turn of the clock at the end of the second period, Hiller came damn close. Hiller was a wall all day, racking up 42 saves, and were it not for Zach Parise's flukey goal early in the third period, the game might have been headed towards a shootout.

As for Parise, he scored his first and second goals of the tournament, which, considering that he's arguably the most dynamic player on the U.S. team, took long enough. Not to say that he didn't play well in the preliminary rounds; Parise assisted on multiple crucial goals and created plays with his frenetic pace and speed, but it was surprising that he hadn't yet lit the lamp. The U.S. could use a few more tallies against the Finns on Friday, who will have a sturdy Miikka Kiprusoff in net to go with what is a fairly potent offense. I still like the chances of the U.S. to out-muscle and wear down Finland over 60 minutes, but I may be viewing that through patriotic lenses.

And I know it. I guess we'll see how it turns out in 27 hours.

Before I sign off for today, I wanted to get back to a few days ago when I brought up my not so recent fascination with Curling. My friend Christian, after reading the post sent me a photo of him and his friends after a jaunt to the ice sheet in college to see what it's all about. I his words, "It's really fun and it DOES tire you out," so I'm not surprised on either account and am even more eager to give it a shot once I actually, you know, have free time or people to do with it. Always the catch there. The more I watch it the more convinced I am that it really is an intense physical work out -- so all you people who claim curlers aren't athletes can stuff it. Moreover, as another reader pointed out to me, Curling can apparently be a more socially conscious sport than most while doing the important job of educating teenagers.

I told you all the game was replete with euphemisms.

You All Should Care About This More

It's a big ol' day of Olympic hockey as we move on to the elimination rounds, and not those silly qualification round games where giants pick on lesser countries. I shouldn't be quite so condescending. After all, Norway did push Slovakia to overtime and Latvia put a scare into the Czech Republic, which also needed overtime to advance.

But let's be honest here. These were not big matchups. With the possible exception of USA-Switzerland at 3 p.m. all of today's quarterfinal matches feature big-time showdowns. I of course will be most glued to the United States, which should, all things being equal, manage a victory over the Swiss. Beyond defenseman Mark Streit and netminder Jonas Hiller, this team is mostly bereft of NHLers and should be a relative easy match. Of course, if being a Mets and Giants fan has taught me anything it's not to take any game for granted. This goes double for the Swiss, who almost stole a game from Canada in the round robin. With Hiller in goal, Switzerland is a threat to beat anyone any day, which makes me extremely antsy.

That said, USA-Switzerland is probably the least sexy game of the day. Finland and the Czech Republic will give us a meeting of two gold medal contenders at 10 as will Slovakia and Sweden at midnight.

But neither of those is the one I'm excited about. Nope. Not one bit.

....

"Well, what are you excited about, Dave?!"

At the beginning of this tournament, Canada was the prohibitive gold medal favorite with many tabbing Russia as the team most likely to stand in its way. Well, Russia does, indeed, stand in its way, but not for all of the marbles, as we all expected. Instead, the Canadians' disappointing first-round showing, which saw the greatest collection of hockey talent on the planet get taken to a shootout before a stunning loss to the U.S., has put both of these teams in quite a predicament.

We're all getting the game we wanted, but instead of gold, they aren't playing for any medal at all. Whomever loses will go home in a remarkably unexpected turn of events.

And that's not why it's so exciting.

Here's why it's so exciting. Canada and Russia don't like each other. Really, they don't. In fact, they hate each other. While we Americans only think of Russian hockey in terms of Sergei Fedorov and the Miracle on Ice, Canada has its own storied rivalry with the east. This comes not so much out of any history of dramatic upsets, but more over the pride of which nation is the greatest in the sport. These tensions came to a head during the 1972 Summit Series, which still is one of the proudest hockey moments for any Canadian who was or wasn't alive at the time. Canada rallied from a 5-3 deficit with three third-period goals in the decisive game in Moscow.

Some Canadians, such as the delightful, and phenomenally dressed Don Cherry still believe the Russians to be too soft to compete with the real men of Canada. Or at the very least that they're taking jobs from good Canadian boys.



If the historic rivalry over the two doesn't whet your appetite enough, perhaps the fact that the three best players in the world will be in the game will. In fact, number one and two will be on opposite sides of the ice and they don't like each other one bit and they're quite vocal about it. The two have faced each other a number of times, including a thrilling playoff series last year when both scored hat tricks in the same game.

During the regular season, Ovechkin's Capitals have had a tendency to win more often than not lately, including a thriller on Super Bowl Sunday this year, when Ovi's hat trick propelled the Caps to their 14th straight win in overtime. Of course, despite the regular season success, Crosby has clearly been the one who has gotten the ultimate prize so far among other spoils.

Regardless, what this all boils down to is the two most dynamic players in the world, who don't like each other, playing for their countries, which don't like each other, in the biggest international hockey tournament in the world in a one-off elimination game.

How on Earth can you not be excited about this? The only person who might not be is Crosby's phenomenal teammate and Russian forward Evgeni Malkin, who, if nothing else, just gets lost in the shuffle. I haven't even gotten to the dozens of All Stars suiting up for either side such as Jarome Iginla or Ilya Kovalchuk.

This is an incredible international matchup with stars and stakes that happen once every four years if we're lucky. If you enjoy any sport, let alone hockey, you should be watching this game.