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Gumby · 03-01-2010, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nodnarb

Weak indeed.

It will be very interesting to see how the Russians perform in Sochi. You can bet they've been hearing about their poor results from the entire country back home. There's a reason Ovie isn't real friendly with media right now. They're embarrassed and the timing couldn't be worse.
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It will be Team Russia's turn to feel the weight of a nation on their shoulders.

Tim Budong · 03-01-2010, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nodnarb

Weak indeed.

It will be very interesting to see how the Russians perform in Sochi. You can bet they've been hearing about their poor results from the entire country back home. There's a reason Ovie isn't real friendly with media right now. They're embarrassed and the timing couldn't be worse.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by q0192837465

hahaha, Putin is disappointed. I feel sorry for the Russian athletes when they get back to Motherland

If anything, this Russian team had some contraversy outside of what Russia calls their "dream team" To be real honest here, the Russian mens team had a KHL captain and KHL talent, to prove to the world that they would be able to succeed in the 2010 games. To really try to showcase to the world that the KHL is more than just "another" European league. When it came down to the final stretch, the KHL guys looked dismantled and were completely outplayed by the hockey power houses. This alone, makes this Russian team look like a political fight. Leaving the likes of Kovalev and Slava Kozlov to name a few who have proven time after time that they can perform at the highest level.

What does Ovechkin really thing of the KHL talent now after what we saw the past two weeks? The KHL talent, aside from Radulov couldnt keep up in all the games they played in. They didn't look tired or anything, they were just outplayed by players from a league of higher standards.

What we do know is that more and more talent is staying in Russia to expand and grow the KHL, but their time is not now, it will come, maybe closer to sochi2014. If anything, the Russian Hockey Program will continue to get better as time passes.

HondaGuy · 03-01-2010, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HachiSix

"If you ain't first, you're last!"

HAHAHAHA...when I read this, I totally agree.

"I-I-I am number one, cause two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers." - Nelly

GO CANADA GO!

RRxtar · 03-01-2010, 03:52 PM

In Canada, the game drew an average 16.6 million viewers on CTV[6]

In the United States, NBC said that the game was the most-watched hockey game in the U.S. in 30 years, drawing 27.6 million, the largest since the United States-Finland gold medal game at the 1980 Winter Olympics.[6]

murd0c · 03-01-2010, 03:58 PM

Has anyone heard anything about what the players are going to be doing with the money they get from winning the gold? I really hope they donate it to the Canadians who didn't get a chance at winning a medal.

TOS'd · 03-01-2010, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RRxtar

In Canada, the game drew an average 16.6 million viewers on CTV[6]

In the United States, NBC said that the game was the most-watched hockey game in the U.S. in 30 years, drawing 27.6 million, the largest since the United States-Finland gold medal game at the 1980 Winter Olympics.[6]

lol with those numbers, there is no way americans can say oh its just hockey you beat us in and that no on cares about hockey down there. 27.6 million people watched the game and watched Canada win. the amricans are just as bad as the russians when they are trying to justify their lost to Team Canada.
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Meowjin · 03-01-2010, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundy

WOW, that is weak. Especially since hockey is one sport that would be LEAST improved by 'roids.

wat

Meowjin · 03-01-2010, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TOS'd

lol with those numbers, there is no way americans can say oh its just hockey you beat us in and that no on cares about hockey down there. 27.6 million people watched the game and watched Canada win. the amricans are just as bad as the russians when they are trying to justify their lost to Team Canada.
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percentage wise.

woob · 03-01-2010, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MajinHurricane

wat

Yes, speed/shot strength/hit power may be improved but accuracy, deking ability and generally soft hands would not be affected.

Harvey Specter · 03-01-2010, 04:39 PM

The Russians did say that if they played Canada that it would be KHL vs. the NHL. I guess that comment back fired.

TOS'd · 03-01-2010, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MajinHurricane

percentage wise.

watu
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Blinky · 03-01-2010, 05:04 PM

This image was the two-page cover on the Grobe and Mare (Globe and Mail) today. Do want....

Anyone got something I can use for wallpaper?

Check out the paper for the crowd reactions. Of course there are the awesome Canada fans, but there are more than a few US fans whose expressions are awesome.

Plus:
Rafalski: "WTF"
Miller: "OMG"
Parise: "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU"
Crosby: "OWNED!"

Soundy · 03-01-2010, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woob

Yes, speed/shot strength/hit power may be improved but accuracy, deking ability and generally soft hands would not be affected.

Exactly. The benefits would be limited for most players except the grinders and goons. Artificially bulked up muscles certainly wouldn't help a goaltender or a sniper.

Harvey Specter · 03-01-2010, 05:52 PM

What do you guys think? Pro's or no pro's in 2014? I'm going with pros because hockey doesn't really have a world cup like soccer. Yes hockey has the world championships but it's not the same thing because the teams aren't as stacked as they are in the Olympics. You get a chance every 4 years to prove you're the best in the world and it'll be a shame if the NHL decides to pull the plug and not support the games.

Quote:

Good show, but NHL shouldn’t be involved

Well, wasn’t that an exciting end to a tremendous two-week tournament? We’ll excuse Brian Rafalski(notes) for forgetting he was a defenseman and allowing Sidney Crosby(notes) a clear path to glory.

Could it have been scripted any better for Team Canada? Heavy favorites to at least reach the gold-medal game from the moment rosters were announced, Canada earned every bit of gold. The players deflected pressure, focused after suffering a confidence-shaking loss to the Americans in preliminary-round action and came together while leaving no doubt during victories over Switzerland, Russia and Slovakia to earn a rematch against a stout Team USA.

Sunday’s finale was filled with all the drama NBC hoped it could give viewers. And thank goodness the game was decided – one way or another – before it reached the bogus shootout format that would have followed a scoreless sudden-death period.
And, of course, it ended with the puck on Crosby’s stick. Sid the Kid has taken a lot of undeserved flak for being put on a pedestal by everyone but himself since being drafted first overall in 2005 by the Pittsburgh Penguins, and subsequently asked by the league to successfully lead the NHL out of the embarrassing lockout of 2005-06.

Crosby didn’t ask for that responsibility – to put a happy face on a new NHL that became the first pro sport to lose an entire season due to labor strife. And a lot of people have come down hard on Crosby simply because he receives so much attention. At the tender age of 22 he led his team to the Stanley Cup and his country to a gold medal in the span of nine months.

I’d say he’s pretty good.

Now here’s the rub. Crosby, Rafalski and all the other NHLers who were participating in the Vancouver Olympic men’s hockey tournament should never have been there in the first place. And they definitely have no business being involved in the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia.

Harsh, you say?

Granted, watching two weeks of Olympic hockey is good stuff, but it’s not worth all the sacrifices, and it does take away in other areas.

Let’s say NHL players were allowed to play in 1980. Imagine that. So much for the Miracle on Ice, regardless who won the gold. How good was it to learn about each of those individual stories, the background of each player, what unbelievable obstacles in terms of an uneven playing field the U.S. overcame to win 30 years ago.

Hockey would never have received the boost the amateurs gave the sport with their win at Lake Placid, N.Y., it would never have raised the profile, albeit modestly, to the level it achieved in the 1980s and ’90s. Wayne Gretzky’s trade from Edmonton to Los Angeles gave rise to Sun Belt expansion – nine new NHL outposts in all (Anaheim, San Jose, Nashville, Columbus, Atlanta, Florida, Tampa Bay, Dallas and Phoenix), but how do you quantify what the 1980 Miracle did for growth?

The NHL product has suffered, and will suffer more this season because it accommodated a long break to shut down its business in the middle of the season. The regular-season schedule has been compacted on both ends of the break, and that’s led to more injuries and less aesthetic pleasure when watching on many nights.

Who pays for that? The loyal paying customer, in fact, and quite literally as well. Loyal fans are plunking down big bucks in hard economic times and getting less for their investment than ever. There’s no guarantee the best players are really at their best considering what the schedule is doing to them this season, and the best players are the ones playing in the Olympics.

Someone should ask the Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche how they feel about playing Monday night. More specifically, Mike Babcock goes from coaching the gold-medal game to having to rush off to Denver to coach his team barely 24 hours later. Think Rafalski suits up for that one? He goes from playing six games in 12 days – all in a playoff-like atmosphere – to jumping straight back into the NHL rigors.

On the other hand, considering the Red Wings’ precarious position in the Western Conference standings in relations to the playoffs, can Detroit afford to risk not playing Rafalski?

We don’t know yet what the rest of the regular season will look like other than a bunch of games crammed together after the players were forced off the ice for several weeks. How are those first couple of games going to look?

What are teams going to have left for the Stanley Cup playoffs? How much energy are top players going to have? Will the overall product be noticeably less than we’re used to seeing?

Olympic hockey should be reserved for non-pros. It’s as simple as that. These games over the last two weeks were nothing more than NHL games with reshuffled rosters. Most players on Sweden or Finland or Russia or the Czech and all players on the rosters of Canada and the U.S. have faced their counterparts many times before in the NHL. There was no mystery about matchups.

Don’t think the Olympic hockey tournament would be compelling without the pros you know and recognize? Did you happen to tune into the World Junior Championships not even two months ago where the U.S. beat Canada, 6-5, in sudden death for the title? It happened on Canadian soil, too. Great stuff. Great stories. Not very many people had heard of those young stars before that tourney started, but they sure knew of them if they followed it all the way through.

Fast forward four years, and if you think it was inconvenient to play in Vancouver this time around just imagine the hassle Sochi would provide. The NHL is still complaining about Torino in 2006 and Nagano in 1998. It will be the same, if not more, in Sochi.

There’s no guarantee the NHL will be involved. The players’ association will likely want to be included, certainly the Russian faction of the membership would love to be a part of those Olympics. Ownership and commissioner Gary Bettman might have other ideas. Big clue – it will ultimately come down to money.

Let’s just save everyone the aggravation and not include the NHL. It’s the right thing to do.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?...yhoo&type=lgns

MarkyMark · 03-01-2010, 06:02 PM

I think it would be horrible to not include NHL players in future olympics. It's once every four years to see what country is the best, because the best players are hand picked. If it's going to turn into a tournament with a bunch of leftover players then the allure is gone, and I probably wouldn't even watch most of it.

That world juniors argument is weak, that is the future stars of every country, of course people want to watch that.
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!Nhan · 03-01-2010, 06:16 PM

I dunno if this has been posted up yet or not but I think it should be posted up again anyways if it's been posted once.

Pictures from last nights game!

http://forum.canucks.com/topic/26597...l-amazingness/

Great68 · 03-01-2010, 06:18 PM

The NHL needs to realize that letting its stars play in the Olympics is good for all Hockey, as a sport.

AzNightmare · 03-01-2010, 07:43 PM

"Don’t think the Olympic hockey tournament would be compelling without the pros you know and recognize? Did you happen to tune into the World Junior Championships not even two months ago where the U.S. beat Canada, 6-5, in sudden death for the title"

No. I didn't watch or follow any of this (barely even knew about this). I mainly follow Olympic hockey because of players I know and recognize from NHL... lol
I don't really care about uprising prospects until they make it on the big stage... I know not everyone agrees with this... but that's personally me, anyway.

Jackygor · 03-01-2010, 07:54 PM

raygunpk · 03-01-2010, 08:05 PM

Jackygor · 03-01-2010, 08:06 PM

Tim Budong · 03-01-2010, 08:12 PM

Gary Bettman's defence to not letting hte players go to Sochi was that he would have to shut down the league for two weeks, he was reluctant for 2010, but since it was in Vancouver, in an NHL and hockey mad city, he wouldnt mind. At the same time, US/Canada final was the cream of the crop for Bettman, another all north american final means the greatest exposure of the game for his own selfish needs.

Professionals in Olympic Hockey will always be in the game. So if hte NHL decides to not go, than the SEL, KHL and all the swiss league will be sending their players to Sochi.

back to bettman, as i said, the IIHF wants to grow the sport of hockey of course, and we have seen the success of countries like Slovakia and the Swiss coming to Vancouver to compete, and getting better year after year. The NHL sets the bar for professional hockey and international competition. If the NHL isn't participating or sending their players to the biggest world stage there is, the world will nto notice this great sport.

If Gary Bettman's goal is to successfully gain marketshare in the US, the NHL must be an active player with any event in which the IIHF has participation in, the european leagues have done this and the NHL needs to continue.

FAWKER · 03-01-2010, 08:19 PM

Here's a series of pics I took at the game

RRxtar · 03-01-2010, 08:40 PM

Since the Canada-USA gold medal game was the most watched sporting event other than the NFL in a decade, hopefully all the non-hockey fans in the USA that watched the game stick around to watch some NHL. and if that happens, I would hope that Betman will change his mind about NHL players in 2014. more exposure = more american viewers = more money = happy betman.

sexyaccord · 03-01-2010, 09:33 PM