Alright, so I thought about doing this for the whole tournament, but my computer broke and I was in Malaysia, and yadd-yadda-yadda. Anyway, I know few of you will believe me, but I thought that Slovakia would make some noise. I certainly didn’t see them outlasting Russia in a shootout, but I thought that they would do better than projected.
Tonight for all of you in North America, or tomorrow for me, is the real start of the tournament. The three marquee matches are underway, followed by the qualifying round, and then it gets really interesting. Everyone is trying to make some predictions, so here are mine…
Final Group Games:
Sweden over Finland
Russia over the Czech Republic in extra time (either OT or Shootout)
Canada over the US. For good measure, it’ll be 4-2.
That will leave the rankings as follows:
1. Sweden
2. Canada
3. Czech Republic
4. Finland
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5. Russia
6. United States
7. Slovakia
8. Switzerland
9. Belarus
10. Norway
11. Germany
12. Latvia
So with the top four teams getting a bi to the quarterfinals, the qualification round should be little discussion. Russia will thump Latvia, the US will defeat Germany (maybe Germany could even score a goal, but that would be doubtful), Slovakia will crush Norway, and Switzerland should make short work of Belarus.
That would leave us with the following quarterfinal:
Sweden vs. Belarus
Finland vs. Russia
The United States vs. The Czech Republic
Canada vs. Slovakia
And that’s were things get interesting. Sweden makes it past Switzerland, in a tight checking affair. Finland will shock Russia. I know that Russia is the favourites, but the Finns are playing great right now with Selanne playing like it was 10 years ago and Kipper providing great help from the back end. I think that the Russians could knock off almost any other team, but they don’t match up well against the Finns. The US will defeat the Czech’s in a pretty close game and Canada will beat the Cinderella Slovaks.
In the Quarterfinals, the same story from Super Sunday will unfold with the Swedes and Canadians overcoming their arch-rivals, leading to a showdown of the past two Olympic Champions.
Ohh by the way, the Finns will beat the Americans for the Bronze in there somewhere.
Do you really need to ask who I think will win the Gold?
Torunament MVP: Sidney Crosby.
Until next time,
G
P.S. I predicted Canada to win, by a score of 5-3.
Tags: canada, Olympics, predictions
