Some Olympic Musings...

I finally got a chance to sit down and watch a hockey game in its entirety last night.  That is something I haven't been able to do since the Olympics started.  Yes, I even missed the USA-Canada game on Sunday...oh the tragedy.  Moving on....

Well, the Canada-Germany game wasn’t much of a game, now was it?  It was apparent by the steady stream of comments post-USA game that Team Canada was not happy.  So you knew it was going to be an uphill battle for Germany before the puck even dropped last night.  The Germans battle didn’t last long, unfortunately, as the Canadians made sure to throw as much on net as possible.  Nice try, Germany.  I typically root for the underdogs in these scenarios but there was just no way Canada was going to lose that game.

A couple of the Predators Olympians had good nights though.  Germany’s Marcel Goc was able to put one past Roberto Luongo and logged the first second Olympic goal of his career.  I was happy for him in that moment, even though I knew that goal wouldn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.  He can leave Vancouver with some bragging rights though.  Not many players can say they put one past Luongo, and on his home turf no less.  The other Nashville Predator who had a great night was Shea Weber, playing for Team Canada.  He managed to score the first Olympic goal of his career…except there was a little more to his story.  Predators fans know all about his cannon, his slap shot, his blast from the point, etc.  Well, now the world knows all about it too.  Shea FREAKING Weber shot one off his stick at such lighting speed that it went straight through the net and back out onto the ice before anyone could even notice he scored a goal.  The net didn’t even rip, probably because it didn’t know what was coming.  All I’m going to say is, if you are ever on the ice with Shea Weber and you see him winding up: be afraid, be very afraid.

There’s a lot more Olympic hockey on tap today, starting with the USA-Switzerland game at 2:00pm CST on NBC.  That’s right, N-B-C.  Not MSNBC, not CNBC or USA.  Looks like the network got the message that hockey is worth a larger stage after the strong ratings from Sunday’s USA-Canada game that was relegated to their affiliate network, MSNBC.  If you won’t be around a TV at 2:00pm, you can always catch it online via NBCOlympics.com.  The video feed is about a minute or so behind the television coverage but it will do in a pinch if you’re stuck at work (God forbid!) like I’ll be.

Let’s go, Team USA!