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Importance of first-round impressions
Posted: Monday February 18, 2002 4:38 PM
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah -- This early round has been a delicious smorgasbord of a
feast for hockey fans. Games, games, games, games. It's like our March Madness,
except that 75 percent of the teams have a real chance to win. The hockey here
is better than you'll see in months of watching the NHL -- thank the
concentration of talent and the wider ice for that -- and the matches are not
without
urgency.
One of the misconceptions is that these first matches don't mean anything
because they're non-elimination games. Actually, they mean a lot. By winning its
group on Monday with a 8-1 victory over Belarus, the U.S. has guaranteed itself
a quarterfinal game against Germany that it should easily win. That means the
U.S. only has to split its final two games to win a bronze or
silver.
A similar situation holds true for Sweden. With its dazzling opening-round play,
the 1994 gold medalists have earned a quarterfinal matchup against Belarus. The
opening-round outcomes also mean that two of these four very good teams --
Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland and Russia -- will be done by Wednesday
night. You can bet all four of these squads they had a gimme game in the
quarters.
Here are few other images and thoughts from the seeding
round:
Jaromir Jagr shoving a linesman to the ice late in the
Czech Republic's 2-1 loss to Sweden, then giving an unapologetic shrug and
glaring at the official for having gotten in his way in the first
place.
Theo Fleury swaggering in to meet the media just before the
tournament, clad in a black cowboy hat and long black duster. Think this guy is
playing his
part?
Vladimir Malakhov dropping Keith Tkachuk to the
ice legally as the U.S. winger carried the puck in the final minutes of Saturday
night's 2-2 tie with Russia. Malakhov, a rock, didn't budge. Tkachuk limped off
with a bad thigh bruise. Malakhov, by the way, was one of that game's best
players, making a vintage cross-ice pass to beat the sagging U.S. penalty
killers and leading to Valeri Bure scoring Russia's first
goal.
Also, it's interesting that Tkachuk and John LeClair, the
U.S. power forwards, are having such a strong tournament so far. For all the
great skating on the wide open ice, these games have also included a lot more
body-bumping than people anticipated. Powerful guys like Tkachuk and LeClair
have been effective in creating
room.
That he's scored five goals in three games -- including the first U.S. men's
Olympic hat trick since 1984 -- bodes well for LeClair. Flyers fans can expect a
strong stretch run from
him.
Speaking of physical play, Canada did plenty of hard checking in its
opening-game loss to Sweden, despite Wayne Gretzky's claim that his
team "didn't hit people enough." At one point Adam Foote
mauled Mikael Renberg in front of the Team Canada net, an event that
Renberg did not enjoy at all. After the game's last whistle, Renberg shouted a
few expletives at Chris Pronger just before the postgame
handshakes.
Nothing like seeing Canada's irreverent goalie Ed Belfour
and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman being thrust together,
unintentionally, into the same elevator on Friday. Bettman handled the situation
well, cracking a soft joke on the ride up. Eddie laughed
politely.
The only issues for the U.S. women's team in these Olympics are a)
can they beat Canada in Thursday's gold-medal game? and b) who will be in goal
when they try? Sara DeCosta made a strong bid on Saturday by shutting
out Finland -- the only team aside from the Big Two that puts up a fight -- with
a 21-save performance. Still, coach Ben Smith won't say whether he'll
go with DeCosta over Sarah Tueting, who stopped 21 of 22 shots in
beating Canada for the gold medal in 1998. After blanking Finland DeCosta did no
chest-beating whatsoever. "We have two great goalies," she said. Stay
tuned.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy is in Utah covering the Olympics for the
magazin and CNNSI.com. Check back regularly for more behind-the-scenes reports
from Salt Lake City.
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