OT: US W Hockey team beats the "Olympic Athletes from Russia" 5-0

Submitted by crg on

Another grudgematch against Canada coming soon; should be fun to watch. I remember how chippy it was in the Vancouver games and this has been a real rivalry for a long time now.

Qmatic

February 13th, 2018 at 9:44 AM ^

Agreed. The Nagano games were bad minus the US and Canada. I remember Canada beating China by a ridiculous score something like 13 or 14 to 0. Much better competition now a days in the Women's field.

 

The mens tournament in Nagano however probably is the best of the NHL-players era in my opinion. That gold medal game between the Czech Republic and Russia was amazing. Hasek was out of this world that game.

stephenrjking

February 13th, 2018 at 11:10 AM ^

My opinion is that 2002 was better. Best hockey I've seen anywhere in my life, beginning to end. But this is all subjective.

RE: Women's hockey: The North American primacy is dangerous for the sport if other nations can't at least be competitive. Sports like basketball and curling are also dominated by single nations, but they are widely played and there is at least some question of how things will turn out. 

The upside is that the field is getting more international. Women's college hockey in the States has a wide variety of international players, and here in Duluth it's not uncommon to see teams fielding players from four or more different countries on one roster. Hopefully things will continue to improve, but the sport needs at least one or two other nations to field teams strong enough to compete for gold. 

crg

February 13th, 2018 at 12:03 PM ^

I'm not worried about the future of W hockey at all. There are many countries where hockey is popular (and that list is growing). However, in most of them the W organizations are lagging far behind the M equivalent - this will change with time. Just look at W hockey now versus 20-30 years ago, whereas M hockey is about the same.

stephenrjking

February 13th, 2018 at 1:50 PM ^

I haven't been following this closely but I suspect that as long as women's college hockey remains stable things will continue to equalize as more schools look for international talent and girls growing up in foreign hockey hotbeds see that playing hockey is a good way to get a good education (ie, play well enough and it benefits your future). 

All I know is that UMD has had some serious international diversity on its teams and that has to mean good things for the sport overall. 

FWIW it's not men's hockey but I try to take in women's games with my kids periodically. We can sit right on the glass, so there's something to interest the younger kids, and taken in a vacuum it's still a fast and skillful game that's fun to watch.

Indy Pete - Go Blue

February 13th, 2018 at 12:29 PM ^

Beathing the Russians as OAR feels even better than beating USSR or Russia.  They are appropriately de-legitimized by their name, and then we beat them badly where it really hurts - their precious sport hockey.