How about THAT shit? There was some actual hockey yesterday (US vs. Norway notwithstanding)- what a novel concept. Jonas Hiller stood on his head as he and his scrappy Swiss teammates took the Canadians to the brink before Sid finally ended the shootout, and Dat Horsa Guy knotted the game at 1 halfway through the third period of the Slovakia/Russia tilt before the corpse of Pavol Demitra ended the skills competition for the Slovaks. With Canadia only getting 2 points, and Russia 1, some interesting scenarios may now affect how the standings at the end of pool play shake out. That the US squad has two victories in hand is large right now, but they still have deal with our more polite neighbors to the north on Sunday.
2:00PM – Belarus vs. Sweden – The ghost of Tommy Salo still looms large over this one after Belarus’ shocking upset of the Swedes in 2002. Don’t look for history to repeat itself, but do look for Niklas Kronwall leaving his feet with impunity in IIHF play as well.
6:30PM – Czech Republic vs. Latvia – Watch it for the uniforms. And then make sure you find Jaromir Jagr’s post game remarks in a game writeup somewhere, as he’s all but guaranteed to make himself sound like an asshole.
11:00PM – Finland vs. Germany – Well this should be a friendly affair shouldn’t it? Zee Germans hung closer with Sweden than was expected, and should give the perpetually ill-tempered Finns a game. But unless the krauts can completely trap the life out of Finland, or Niklas Backstrom (the one who’s the goalie) fills his diaper in his obligatory start, Teemu & The Gang should come out ahead.