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aviery

Womens Olympic Ice Hockey

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JAP vs SWE

This was actually some of the best hockey I've seen in a while. Sweden's 1-0 win had me sitting on the edge of my seat for the entire third period. Naturally i'm drawn to cheering for Canada followed by the USA and then European teams however the hustle and hard work that the Japanese women's teams put into game 1 was incredible. Sweden on average probably weighed 5-15kg more than team Japan not to mention towering over the entire team in height. By the end of the first period team Japan tightened their defence, consistently broke out of the zone with speed and accuracy and shut Sweden down on almost every breakout attempt. Shots were almost even. I was expecting more from team Sweden as a historically dominating force.

I normally wouldn't post this as a new thread however this years women's - Team Japan - deserve all the respect and support they can get for playing great hockey.

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Actually, Game 1 was USA v Finland... but yes, I agree entirely with what you said... Japan is my darkhorse team this year.

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One of the things I find about hockey is that most levels of play (nhl, ahl, khl, collegiate etc), mens or womens, are very enjoyable to watch. unlike the vast difference between say NBA and WNBA, and god nba D-league is........lets not go there.

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The U.S. looks unstoppable. They've had Canada's number this year and Finland is really the only other team that can challenge them (Finland beat the U.S. in the 4 nation's cup late last year, despite their goalie seeing almost 60 shots). The U.S. dominated Finland on Saturday, with three times as many shots on net. Noora Raty, far and away the best female goaltender on earth, kept Finland in the game, but she can't score for them. It will be interesting to see if Finland has a letdown or can take a good game to Canada this morning.

I do love the women's game, but I can't wait for the men to start.

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It took 50 minutes, but Canada figured out Raty. I think the announcer just said that Canada's first goal broke a 73 minute shutout Raty had starting in the U.S. game and going into the Canada game. Extraordinary run against the 2 best teams in the Olympics. Man is Raty fun to watch. It must be hard playing in these tournaments and knowing that your team just can't stack up against the US and Canada. Or maybe she just loves seeing shots.

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They just mentioned MSH member DangleDangleChamp on the air; Max started out working for me when I worked at Summit in Novi. He had sustained a huge concussion in his playing days and was pretty messed up, and I had inherited his girlfriend (who played hockey, going to Shattuck St-Mary's and North Dakota after HS) when I took over, and she told me about him. I met him and offered him a job to get him out of the house (he couldn't play anymore and was being homeschooled at that point) and he in turn ended up finishing high school, then went to North Dakota and is the video coach for UND, as well as Finland's video coach.

Great story about Max, and I'm very proud of him and what he has accomplished since.

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They just mentioned MSH member DangleDangleChamp on the air; Max started out working for me when I worked at Summit in Novi. He had sustained a huge concussion in his playing days and was pretty messed up, and I had inherited his girlfriend (who played hockey, going to Shattuck St-Mary's and North Dakota after HS) when I took over, and she told me about him. I met him and offered him a job to get him out of the house (he couldn't play anymore and was being homeschooled at that point) and he in turn ended up finishing high school, then went to North Dakota and is the video coach for UND, as well as Finland's video coach.

Great story about Max, and I'm very proud of him and what he has accomplished since.

That's awesome. You did the hockey world a service by getting Max out and about.

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We were watching RUS-GER early yesterday morning in the concession stand before my kid's squirt game.

Watched for at least 15 minutes when one of the other dads said, "Wait, this is women's hockey?!"

Jim, they're not as big as the guys, but they can skate, pass, shoot, and HIT!

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Game 1 - JAP vs SWE

This was actually some of the best hockey I've seen in a while. Sweden's 1-0 win had me sitting on the edge of my seat for the entire third period. Naturally i'm drawn to cheering for Canada followed by the USA and then European teams however the hustle and hard work that the Japanese women's teams put into game 1 was incredible. Sweden on average probably weighed 5-15kg more than team Japan not to mention towering over the entire team in height. By the end of the first period team Japan tightened their defence, consistently broke out of the zone with speed and accuracy and shut Sweden down on almost every breakout attempt. Shots were almost even. I was expecting more from team Sweden as a historically dominating force.

I normally wouldn't post this as a new thread however this years women's - Team Japan - deserve all the respect and support they can get for playing great hockey.

I was very impressed by Japan. I hadn't seen them play since 1998. they had a number of really good scoring chances and played strong defensively.

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We were watching RUS-GER early yesterday morning in the concession stand before my kid's squirt game.

Watched for at least 15 minutes when one of the other dads said, "Wait, this is women's hockey?!"

Jim, they're not as big as the guys, but they can skate, pass, shoot, and HIT!

No wonder this poor guy got owned thinking he was watching the mens. I'm sitting here enjoying every game as if it were the mens so kudos to (that guy). Russia in particular seemed to work like clockwork in this game with all goals set up very strategically. I would expect nothing less from this team.

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We were watching RUS-GER early yesterday morning in the concession stand before my kid's squirt game.

Watched for at least 15 minutes when one of the other dads said, "Wait, this is women's hockey?!"

Jim, they're not as big as the guys, but they can skate, pass, shoot, and HIT!

Actually, they can't hit. Bodychecking is a penalty in the women's game.

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We were watching RUS-GER early yesterday morning in the concession stand before my kid's squirt game.

Watched for at least 15 minutes when one of the other dads said, "Wait, this is women's hockey?!"

Jim, they're not as big as the guys, but they can skate, pass, shoot, and HIT!

I train at the same gym where the US Women's team had been training before leaving for Sochi & I also played in a pick up game with some members of the Boston Blades who didn't make the US team

Needless to say, it's a humbling experience. Watching the women's team train or playing against the women who didn't make the Olympic, they're all world class athletes.

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Actually, they can't hit. Bodychecking is a penalty in the women's game.

They do give them a fair bit of leeway. I would define it like our men's league, "no check, not no contact". They definitely let them bump and play a physical game. I saw some contact that I was sure would be called, but the officials let it go.

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I am curious as to why the women are no-check, and appear to be required to wear masks in Olympic competition, but the men aren't.

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I am curious as to why the women are no-check, and appear to be required to wear masks in Olympic competition, but the men aren't.

From what I've read, heard and seen growing up, it's because the women's game evolved a little differently at the youth level. Boys hockey is divided into groups based on age with 2 years at each level and multiple talent classifications at each age level. When I was younger growing up in Canada boys played hockey and girls played ringette. After a lot of bickering at various organizational levels and several legal decisions girls started playing on boys teams. Eventually interest grew to the point where there was enough interest for girls to have their own teams and leagues. Smaller numbers meant the age divisions had to be enlarged in order to have enough players to form teams and leagues and the talent levels varied. So instead of players one year apart, they could in theory be 3 maybe 4 years apart depending on population density. Talent levels in leagues tended to be a little more diverse for the same reason. Thus you could have a fairly diverse group of ages, size and talent in the same league. So in the interest of safety and competition girls hockey started as a no checking league. It has always remained that way.

No cages in men's hockey is an extension of Major Junior, semi-pro and professional hockey where cages for the most part aren't allowed. Women's hockey to the best of my knowledge doesn't have any high level leagues where cages are optional. So the women have always worn them.

On a side note, Canadian university hockey players don't wear cages. Many of them have come up through Major Junior. There is an ongoing debate within the NCAA as they become increasingly seen as a grooming league for the NHL to remove the cages.

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No hitting? You didn't watch the Canada vs USA game this morning. They do a lot of hitting and the refs tend to let them play. I was fortunate enough to watch the entire game at work. Pretty much everyone in the office was streaming it. Bandwidth up, productivity down. When the men's games start tomorrow at noon this office will be at a standstill.

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I didn't see all of it, but the U.S. Canada game looked great. Congrats to Haley Wickenheiser, who I believe became the all time leading scorer in international women's hockey, surpassing Camie Granato.

We should probably hope that we get to watch a rematch in the medal round.

And, to respond to the most recent issue in the thread, this game was basically full on checking and it wasn't being called.

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Wow, great game.

Probably the best and most physical womens hockey game I've seen. As far as hitting and full on checking, not so much. No check doesn't mean no contact. The difference between checking and contact can be as subtle as dropping the shoulder, swinging the hips, lining somebody up or driving through the body. There was lots of contact, taking away the lane, playing the body and yes a few subtle checks. I'd even say that's the direction USA Hockey would like to see checking leagues headed given some of their recent rule changes. But that game was about as physical as our mens league and fire dept. tournament team games, both of which are "no check, not no contact." Both teams obviously have a very good idea just how physical they can be, along with tremendous discipline and are very good at taking their play right to the edge. I didn't see much of anything that I thought should have been called but wasn't. They came to play, were equally matched, were physical yet disciplined, played right to the edge of the rules and the game didn't get out of hand so the ref let them play.

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Evidently goals scored after a whistle count in Olympic hockey. I try not to critisize refs because thier job is extremely difficult but the officials for this game did not do a good job at all. At least 3 "to many men" were missed, they at least got one and it seamed like they were always in the way of play. Maybe this crew isn't used to the speed of the USA/Canada women. It was an exciting gamed, good thing it didn't have any real meaning. Look forward to these teams playing again.

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Evidently goals scored after a whistle count in Olympic hockey. I try not to critisize refs because thier job is extremely difficult but the officials for this game did not do a good job at all. At least 3 "to many men" were missed, they at least got one and it seamed like they were always in the way of play. Maybe this crew isn't used to the speed of the USA/Canada women. It was an exciting gamed, good thing it didn't have any real meaning. Look forward to these teams playing again.

They missed a blatant hit from behind too. That Canada goal was weird. From one angle replay it sounded like the whistle went before it crossed the line but from the other it was the opposite. I couldn't decide.

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What I didn't understand with the refs is what about intnent to blow the whistle. The way the puck slid slowly over the line and when the whistle blew the first thought I had was they had to be moving the whistle to thier mouth to blow it. I think the one replay they kept going back to showed the whistle blew before but I would love to know if they have the intent rule.

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They missed a blatant hit from behind too. That Canada goal was weird. From one angle replay it sounded like the whistle went before it crossed the line but from the other it was the opposite. I couldn't decide.

I totally agree. The replay from behind sounded like the whistle blew before the puck crossed the line. The view from the side of the net looked like the puck crossed the line before the whistle.

I was also surprised by the fact there was no real call on the ice one way or the other. The ref pretty much didn't make a definitive goal or no goal call after the play. Pretty much just said let's go see what the replay shows.

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Evidently goals scored after a whistle count in Olympic hockey. I try not to critisize refs because thier job is extremely difficult but the officials for this game did not do a good job at all. At least 3 "to many men" were missed, they at least got one and it seamed like they were always in the way of play. Maybe this crew isn't used to the speed of the USA/Canada women. It was an exciting gamed, good thing it didn't have any real meaning. Look forward to these teams playing again.

Were they using the 3 "man" system or 4? I don't think the three works well enough for high level or high intensity games.

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