the world of jim

The poor Latvians.  They just can’t catch a break.  Our only game of the day saw Latvia take on the Slovaks.  Both were at 0-3.  The Slovaks certainly have appeared to be the better team but once again, the Latvians were favored by the crowd.  The Slovaks came out fast and hard and scored two quick ones.  I thought it was all over.  Then Latvia switched goalies.  Suddenly, within 5 minutes, Latvia scored three times and we finally had a game on our hands.  It seesawed back and forth until the third period.  Shots were even and the we really thought Latvia had finally found their stride.  Alas, they came out flat in the third, and the Slovaks evidently came out to win and went up by two goals again and gave Latvia no opportunity to tie it up even though there were some close calls.  One thing we still can’t figure out is Latvia had plenty of time to pull their goalie in the last two minutes but didn’t.  A great game overall but Latvia is now on life support.  It will be interesting to see what they manage to do in the relegation rounds.

We had another night off and went to “John’s” – reputedly the best steak & prime rib house in town – had a very nice dinner and topped it off by watching Zombieland in the room – film making at its finest – but definitely not meant for everyone.

We’re really looking forward to tomorrow’s games – the 2nd one being US vs. Canada – that will determine who gets a buy to the semi’s.  Should be an awesome game.

Two games today.

The first, Latvia vs. the US. Not surprisingly, another routing of the Latvians. Again, the crowd for some strange reason was solidly behind the Latvians. Go figure. They scored one goal and the crowd went nuts. Too bad they just don’t seem to have enough skill or drive to do better. They don’t take enough shots when they should and while their goaltending isn’t terrible, they aren’t a hard checking team and so they let their opposition walk in and control the play too, too much.

Game 2 of the day. Canada vs. Slovakia. The mood of the rink is electric. The Slovaks are good so we have the sense it will be a good game and perhaps our first test. The shots on net for the first time are even throughout the game. Team Canada put the other goalie in net for the first time so I was a bit concerned but he played extremely well. It was a very physical game with both teams giving and taking. Fortuntately, nothing nasty and while the refs certainly seemed to favor the Slovaks, we have a great penalty kill and our power play is simply outstanding. I would say that we’ve only ever seen our boys not score two or three times with we’ve had a one man advantage. Other teams would be smart if they were never a man down.

So despite the score, it was a great solid game and some of the shots (and goals) we saw were simply outrageous. The passing is tremendous but sometimes all it takes is to get the puck to the net. The boys don’t hesitate to shoot if there’s no pass despite and obvious effort to do lots of passing. That’s one thing Team Canada might not get away with so much with the Americans. Sooner or later other teams with figure out the Canadian way and the games will certainly get tougher and tougher. Certainly the Slovaks have been the best so far at reading our plays and stopping them – but at the end of the night – simply not good enough.

Day 3 began a bit cloudy with a few snow flurries and still cold but not unpleasant.

Today was Canada vs. the Swiss. The Swiss have a fantastic goalie and a few other very solid players. They played a good, hard game with lots of physical play but even with the goalie doing an outstanding job, they could not keep up to our boys. Team Canada really seems to have their formula down pat – skate hard, check hard, lots of shots, lots of puck cycling around the net and most importantly, accuracy. They also never give up. It seems unrelentless at times and must frustrate the other teams. Our goalie gave another very solid effort but wasn’t tested all that much. Still, a very exciting game and our team seems to be very together and while they can play physically, no one seems to be overdoing it (from a nasty point of view).

This was a one game day, so we had the night off. We intended to try and see a movie but so did a few hundred other people and the line ups at the downtown movie theatre was out the door. So we skipped that, had a quick dinner and made it an early night.

Note about downtown Saskatoon – it’s surprisingly cosmopolitan – not many greasy spoons or diners. Many, many upscale type restaurants and pubs.