MTSU Ice Hockey

Angela Ruggiero, a US defenseman ice hockey player, said that women’s ice hockey should be retained its place in the Olympic program despite the unbeatable dominance of US and Canada. She concerned the development of women’s ice hockey outside North America which, according to her, hasn’t given the same opportunity to develop compared to men’s ice hockey. “Giving our sport more time to develop is the most important thing,” said Ruggiero.

She predicted that it would need more than four Olympics to fill in the gap between those countries and the giant US and Canada. This huge gap can be seen from last Olympic results. US team and Canada team met in final resulted in Canada’s winning with 2-0 score. They reached final by defeating two other semifinalist, Finland and Sweden, with such a big score gap. Finland’s record against combined US and Canada is 0-11 while Sweden recorded 2-22 defeat to both combined US and Canada.

In total, US and Canada have won all four women’s ice hockey Olympics titles since its participation in 1998 Olympics, 12 World championships and all 14 golds of Four Nation Cups. Being the new member of IOC since she was elected last month, she does have the power to make the women’s ice hockey to be kept at least for 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Canada won the gold medal. The world already knew about that. But here is one light yet interesting story from the final match of Men’s Hockey 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. The hero of the day, Sidney Crosby, lost his hockey stick and glove. And even though Hockey Canada has done everything it can to recover the items, they are still missing until now.

How did it all happen? Well, right after the winning goal, all the equipment men rushed into the ice to celebrate the victory. They started to herd all the helmets, gloves, and stick to the Canadian bench. It was definitely a mess back then. When the celebration was over, the coaches scooped out the gears and put them in the Canadian’s dressing room hallway. But we know then that there were two gears never went back to their owner.

Regarding their owner and the special triumphal moment the glove and stick have been through, Hockey Hall of Fame vice-president Phil Pritchard said that the gear have raised their financial worth by now. This of course raises a speculation that those two items were stolen. However, with the spreading news right now, Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada’s director of the men’s national team, urged whoever possess the glove and the stick to return it since obviously the person won’t be able to brag about them or sell them. Let’s just wait and see if this humble advice will work.

Before the Olympics began, people predicted that there were two main powers in 2010 Winter Olympics which should meet in the final of women’s hockey, USA team and Canada team. Both of the teams are massive destroyers for the opponent team and sharing equal incredible power. Therefore it was just right to see both of them finally ended up in the first and second place after meeting in the final match. Finland came third in this category, walked away with the bronze medal.

In 2006, Sweden gave big shock to everyone when they ended up in the second place with silver medal. They had surprisingly beaten USA in the semi final even though finally surrendered to Canada in final with big score 13 to 1. And as it had been predicted before, Finland and Sweden lurked behind USA and Canada in the third and fourth place in this 2010 Olympics. The final match between the losing semifinalists gave Finland the right to get hold the bronze medal.

Many people said the fact that the Olympics was celebrated in Canada soil contributed significantly to the winning of Canada team. It cannot be denied that it did, however, the cheering of thousands of host’s supporters would not mean anything without the hard work of the team. Canada deserved the gold medal in this 2010 Olympics. Congratulations Canada!

After being humiliated in the preliminary game by USA team, Canada finally sustained its national honor by winning the gold medal for Men’s Hockey after beating USA team 3 to 2 in overtime in one of the greatest game in Winter Olympics history.

This time, Sidney Crosby was the hero. The 22-year-old Canadian hottest player scored the third and winning goal for Canada 7:40 into overtime to Ryan Miller’s goal. Canada had been struggling to win when the USA team turned over the score in a wonderful comeback through Jonathan Toews and Corey Perry. Groans from USA fans were echoing when Zach Perise tied it up again to 2 – 2. It is the eight gold hockey medal for Canada, the second since 1952.

For USA team, this loss was a great disappointment to them. The team had started wonderfully by beating the more favored Canada and played flawlessly from start. This was the only game they lost in this Olympic. That record and the winning over Canada before had made them believe that they deserved the gold medal. Yet, with the new Olympic format which has been used since 1990, they must let the gold medal went to Canada due their loss in the last game. USA team has never won gold Olympic medal outside their country. The two gold medals they earned were from 1960 at Squaw Valley, Calif., and 1980 at Lake Placid, N.Y.