OT: Olympics
- Thread starter rcube1994
- Start date
Congrats to Erin Jackson on becoming the 1st American women to win a speed skating gold since 2002. Incredible given that she has only been involved with the sport for about 6 years.
Wow! Congrats to Erin. I read a story in Sports Illustrated on her that she could not even stand up on the ice when she first tried to ice skate. I didn't even know roller blade events were that big but it seems most countries are getting the ice talent from there as well.
Article on Charlie Volker from Fair Haven (played football and ran track at Rumson-Fair Haven High School and Princeton) on Olympic bobsled team:
Slovakia took out Germany last night 4-0, so USA takes on Slovakia tonight at 11. Canada eliminated China this morning 7-2, so Canada faces Sweden as expected. China finishes their Olympics with a total of 4 goals scored and 39 goals against, the worst goal differential since 1988.
On the other side of the bracket, Denmark beat Latvia and now meets Russia, whom they only lost to in the round-robin 2-0 with an empty-netter in the waning seconds, so maybe they can pull off an upset. Switzerland knocked out the Czech Republic, who is a shadow of what they used to be in the days of Jagr, Hasek, etc. Switzerland takes on Finland next.
USA vs. Slovakia
Sweden vs. Canada
Finland vs. Switzerland
Russia vs. Denmark
On the other side of the bracket, Denmark beat Latvia and now meets Russia, whom they only lost to in the round-robin 2-0 with an empty-netter in the waning seconds, so maybe they can pull off an upset. Switzerland knocked out the Czech Republic, who is a shadow of what they used to be in the days of Jagr, Hasek, etc. Switzerland takes on Finland next.
USA vs. Slovakia
Sweden vs. Canada
Finland vs. Switzerland
Russia vs. Denmark
I just missed that but I do remember thinking how much better they'd be if they could have had Hasek, Jagr, Chara, Bondra, Satan, etc. all on the same team.
Welp, another disappointing ending for the US in Olympic hockey. Gave up the tying goal with 44 seconds left, then no score in 10 minutes of 3-on-3 OT, and a 1-0 loss in the shootout. Slovakia moves on to the semis to face the winner of Canada/Sweden. Hopefully the women get it done in tonight's gold medal game against Canada.
Yes it is ridiculous but when you understand who posted this non truth then you’ll understand. Just by the date this poster joined the site says volumes about his mindset.
She really destroyed it.
Thanks to the angry usual suspects here for advertising her so hard. Got to enjoy some top-tier skiing I totally would have missed!
Id be pissed too if I landed 5 quads firstcwomen ever to do so and lost to someone who landed two
Watched five minutes almost by accident, first five minutes of the whole thing. Honestly didn't realize it was still going on. It was hard to watch the doping girl fail repeatedly. She's too young to be in control of that situation, I pity her. The rest of them were hysterical and hugging stuffed animals. Masks and plastic face shields everywhere. Very bizarre. 2/10 would not watch again.
USA women's hockey lost to Canada in the gold medal game. Had a terrible first period that finished 2-0, then gave up another goal to make it 3-0 in the second. USA dominated the second half of the game, but it wasn't enough, final score 3-2.
Same arc you find in some other sports
Baseball fixated to the home run
Basketball fixated to the dunk
Tennis fixated to the serve
Aristotle said "spectacle" was the 6th and most minor element of drama and should never drive the plot
These days spectacle drives a lot of things - like Marvel films.
So how did last night's skating go?
BEIJING (AP) — The gold medalist said she felt empty. The silver medalist pledged never to skate again. The favorite left in tears without saying a word.
LOL!
BEIJING (AP) — The gold medalist said she felt empty. The silver medalist pledged never to skate again. The favorite left in tears without saying a word.
LOL!
Gotta feel bad for those Russian teens. What awful lives they have been living, just because stupid adults want meaningless medals.
Basketball has moved on from the dunk fwiw. It's the three ball. You've got guys with no business being outside the arc out there chucking.
The NBA has become boring - dunk/foul or chuck a 3 and fake a foul. The game is ruined.
Moneyball has infected almost every sport. Playing smart doesn't always mean it's the most entertaining to the fans.
Ug, it has destroyed baseball as well. It is creeping into football, but since the Chargers coach royally f'ed up, its momentum may stop.
You don't have to be "old" to remember that. They separated in 1993 so it isn't ancient history, LOL. What you aren't old enough to remember is that Czechoslovakia, like Yugoslavia, was somewhat artificially created in the aftermath of World War I and the dismembering of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Also read somewhere the Ottoman Empire was neither a chair or an empire. Crazy.
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I tried watching a few games recently. Boring as hell. No creativity. I may give playoffs another chance but basketball is lost somewhere between sports and entertainment. No identity. Plus, you have guys like Giannis taking like 4 steps to the hoop, steamrolling players with offensive fouls, and the refs do nothing. Then, a player pulls up for a short jumper and a sneeze will draw a foul. The jump step and three ball are killing the sport of basketball.
Once refs stopped calling Patrick Ewing for traveling, that rule got thrown out the window for ever.
As hockey wraps up, Slovakia completed a great story and made their upset over the US count for something this morning as they pulled off another one over Sweden in the bronze medal game, 4-0 with two empty-netters, to capture their first ever medal in Olympic hockey, led by 17-year old Juraj Slafkovsky who put up a tournament high 7 goals in 7 games. NHL Central Scouting currently has him ranked as the #2 European prospect in this year's draft.
Slovakia was one of the final teams to qualify--of the 12 teams in the tournament, 8 get there by being ranked in the top 8 in the IIHF world rankings, the 9th team is the host country (if they are not in the top 8, as was the case this year and in South Korea), and the remaining 3 (or 4) spots are decided out of the remaining by a long series of round-robin qualification tournaments that include the other 35+ IIHF countries.
There are four rounds of qualification, and the lower your world ranking is, the earlier you begin. Slovakia was ranked 9th, so they just missed automatically qualifying and only had to participate in the final round of qualifications, but they just scraped by with two 2-1 wins over Austria and Belarus back in August. In fact, in the final qualification game against Belarus, the score was 1-1 late in the third, but since Slovakia beat Poland and Belarus didn't, an OT loss would have been enough for Slovakia to clinch while Belarus needed a regulation win (3 points for a regulation win, 2 points for an OT win, 1 point for an OT loss), so they pulled their goalie with the score tied, and the winning goal was scored on the empty net. Had Belarus managed to score with the extra attacker, it would have been Belarus qualifying for the Olympics and Slovakia wouldn't even be here. Similarly, if Belarus wasn't upset by Poland, they wouldn't have needed to pull their goalie against Slovakia and could have let it go to OT where the winner goes to the Olympics. Crazy to think a team that just narrowly qualified, and was 44 seconds from being eliminated by the US in the quarterfinals, battles through to win a medal.
On the flipside, what a disappointment for Sweden to go home with no medal, but clearly this bronze medal game meant so much more to Slovakia than it did for the Swedes. The gold medal game tonight at 11 between Finland and Russia should be a good one as Russia looks to repeat as gold medalists and Finland hopes to win their first ever gold.
Slovakia was one of the final teams to qualify--of the 12 teams in the tournament, 8 get there by being ranked in the top 8 in the IIHF world rankings, the 9th team is the host country (if they are not in the top 8, as was the case this year and in South Korea), and the remaining 3 (or 4) spots are decided out of the remaining by a long series of round-robin qualification tournaments that include the other 35+ IIHF countries.
There are four rounds of qualification, and the lower your world ranking is, the earlier you begin. Slovakia was ranked 9th, so they just missed automatically qualifying and only had to participate in the final round of qualifications, but they just scraped by with two 2-1 wins over Austria and Belarus back in August. In fact, in the final qualification game against Belarus, the score was 1-1 late in the third, but since Slovakia beat Poland and Belarus didn't, an OT loss would have been enough for Slovakia to clinch while Belarus needed a regulation win (3 points for a regulation win, 2 points for an OT win, 1 point for an OT loss), so they pulled their goalie with the score tied, and the winning goal was scored on the empty net. Had Belarus managed to score with the extra attacker, it would have been Belarus qualifying for the Olympics and Slovakia wouldn't even be here. Similarly, if Belarus wasn't upset by Poland, they wouldn't have needed to pull their goalie against Slovakia and could have let it go to OT where the winner goes to the Olympics. Crazy to think a team that just narrowly qualified, and was 44 seconds from being eliminated by the US in the quarterfinals, battles through to win a medal.
On the flipside, what a disappointment for Sweden to go home with no medal, but clearly this bronze medal game meant so much more to Slovakia than it did for the Swedes. The gold medal game tonight at 11 between Finland and Russia should be a good one as Russia looks to repeat as gold medalists and Finland hopes to win their first ever gold.