Olympic Hockey has started for the USA! Go for the Gold!

Considering the draw(Ghana, Portugal, Germany) that the US Men’s National soccer team was handed at the upcoming 2014 World Cup in Brazil the chances to advance from our group are very difficult. So my current attention for a big win for a USA national team has to fall to Ice Hockey at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. We have made it to the gold medal game in 2002 and 2010, both times to lose to arch-rival Canada. This time hopefully things will be different and the competition got underway today Feb 13th.

The USA played Slovakia, a team that produces much current NHL talent, and in the past has produced greats like Peter Stasney, who now has a son playing for the USA. This was thought of as a tough game, being both the first game where the players were going to gel, fight off jet-lag/tired legs, and figure out the line combinations. Well the USA got off to a great start with a rousing 7-1 win, with Slovakia having to pull their starting goalie. It was necessary to run up the score, as one of the tie-breakers to win your group and automatically advance to the Quarter-final round is goal differential.

I was impressed by goalie Jonathan Quick, who in reality should have had a shut-out as the one slovakia goal was clearly off-side and missed by the refs. Also as a fan of the NY Rangers it was great to see Ryan Callahan get some good ice time both even strength and penalty kill. I can’t find stats with individual player ice-times, but I saw him and hear his name along with fellow teammate Ryan McDonagh called many times. Derek Stepan was a scratch, but hopefully in the weekend back to back games against Russia and Slovenia he will get to show what he can do.

Overall LET’S GO USA.. I have my jersey, and plan as of now to wake up early Saturday for the USA vs Russia game and hit a bar.. yeah its 7:30am don’t judge, its almost 5pm in Sochi and we know some Vodka will have been drunk!