🏒 Sportsnet game host Ron MacLean’s best-before date has long since passed. His ridiculous takes during today’s Gold Medal hockey game should be his swan song — particularly his nonsensical bit about a painting he bought and its connection to diamonds. What the hell was he talking about? Then again, don’t tell us. Who cares?
🏒 Canada’s track record of best-on-best overtime wins was overdue for a law-of-averages correction. Sooner or later, the pendulum swings the other way — especially when 3-on-3 overtime is in play.
🏒 Heading into the Olympics, there was a growing media narrative that the U.S.A. had finally overtaken Canada at the top of the hockey mountain. Anyone who watched today’s finale would be hard-pressed to regurgitate that claim. Yes, the U.S.A. won the game. But clearly, Canada was the better team today — and throughout.
🏒 To no one’s surprise, the idiot Tkachuk brothers did all the chirping off the ice in Milan while contributing next to nothing on it. Unless, of course, you consider cheap shots after the whistle a contribution.
🏒 Watching intermission analysts and hockey’s so-called “insiders” fawn over every player in the tournament is the old boys’ network at its most nauseating. While Canada was arguably the most dangerous team in the tournament, that doesn’t change the fact that the inclusion of Sam Reinhart and Nick Suzuki on the roster was a glaring mistake. Both were largely invisible, save for a single deflected goal apiece. Reinhart didn’t even attempt a deflection — the puck simply struck his stick while he was looking the other way. That didn’t stop the media chorus from labeling them “big-game” players. Oh, please. Neither has the skating ability to keep pace at the Olympic tempo.
🏒 Czechia’s Radko Gudas wanted to hurt Sidney Crosby — and he succeeded.
🏒 No one should be surprised watching two gutless NHL referees swallow their whistles on an obvious too-many-men penalty in a Gold Medal game. For decades, NHL referees have treated the rule book as a loose set of suggestions in high-stakes games. While it was the IIHF monitoring the Olympic officiating, it appears that old habits die hard for the game’s “best” zebras.
🏒 USA GM Bill Guerin will now escape American scorn for leaving snipers Cole Caufield and Jason Robertson at home. But Canada’s domination over the final 40 minutes suggests the Americans won in spite of his “Canada-focused” roster strategy — not because of it.
