Finland wins bronze over U.S. in men's hockey

CBC Sports ^ | Feb. 22, 2014 | Mike Brophy

[rickmichaels]

It was over in a flash. A Finnish Flash. For Team USA, however, it was more like a flash finish.

Team Finland scored two goals in 11 seconds early in the second period to snap a 0-0 tie en route to a 5-0 victory in the bronze medal game Saturday.

Veteran Teemu Selanne, playing in his 35th Olympic hockey game, scored two goals including the game-winner to lead Finland. It was a wonderful conclusion to what has been a splendid Olympic hockey career for a classy gentleman.

Selanne scored on a nifty backhand shot at 1:27 of the second period and then off the ensuing faceoff, the Finns charged into the American zone with Jussi Jokinen, notching his second goal of the Olympic tournament. That was the game.

The United States generated very few quality scoring chances in the game as the Finns appeared to have a tad more interest in the outcome of the game.

The Finns added three third-period goals to ensure the victory.

[Alberta's Child]

Here's another fascinating tidbit. Not only was Herb Brooks cut from the team right before the 1960 Winter Olympics began, but he was cut after the team photo had already been taken for press releases, media publications, etc.

So they ended up taking the guy who replaced him (Bob Cleary) and pasting a photo of his head on top of Brooks' torso in the team photo before printing the official materials.

One more interesting aspect of that story ... The coach of the U.S. team wasn't even all that keen on bringing Bob Cleary onto the team. But the guy he really wanted was Bob's brother Bill, and apparently he had to bring both Cleary brothers in order to get Bill.

The rest, as they say, is history.

[TurboZamboni]

[airborne]

Good article!

I was thinking - even if they would use AHL, ECHL or college players, most of them would likely be drafted or in some way signed by the NHL.

So in the end it’s going to be NHL players in one fashion or another.

I hope they play in 2018. And I hope the US brings more intensity and desire in 4 years than I saw this year. Very disappointing.

But 4 Penguins came back with medals! Jokinen and Maatta with bronze, and Crosby anf Kunitz with gold!

Now, BACK TO NHL HOCKEY!!!

[wastedyears]

That’s what they get for assembling a team NHL-style, instead of filling their roster with all the best American players. It’s the Olympics, you can’t have a top 6 and bottom 6. All men on the ice have to be the best. Maybe next time, they won’t make the same kind of mistake when they overlooked Kyle Okposo.

[wastedyears]

TTIWWP

[airborne]

Never did care much for that “Rocky Mountain Skunk P!$$” - Corrs, that is.

[ken5050]

Good morning...

FYI..another good read from the National Post: here His main thesis is that Canada will continue to own the international competitions..

[Alberta's Child]

That's a great article. The U.S. has a lot of excellent players, and some of them bring a lot of passion to the ice. But when I watched these games it was clear to me that Canada takes these things very, very seriously -- and the players all check their egos at the door when they put on those national colors. The U.S. would be hard-pressed to match the kind of relentless drive and determination that we saw from Canada over the last couple of weeks. They really were a machine.

[ken5050]

I think you hit on it exactly...the Canadians do take it very seriously..a "relentless drive and determination."

I wonder if the men, after watching the women's amazing comeback, just decided that there was no way that they weren't coming home with the gold also..no way they were gonna lose..

[ken5050]

FYI..another take on the issue: What the loss of NHL players would mean to winter Olympics

[Alberta's Child]

Very interesting. I've heard a few rumblings about the possibility of moving ice hockey to the Summer Olympics to accommodate the NHL schedule, but that seems ludicrous to me. For one thing, there's the obvious problem that playing a hockey tournament in July or August seems awfully silly. Secondly, they'd seem out of place in the summer games. And most important of all, why would the IOC even want to see another sport like this in the Summer Olympics when they don't really need it to enhance the exposure of the Olympics?

I'm not a big fan of having NHL players in the Olympics, but the NHL has one very good reason to send its players there: television viewers. This won't be an issue in a place like South Korea in 2018 where the time is 9-12 hours off from North America, but if the Olympics are held in North America and the NHL doesn't shut down for two weeks, the league could potentially end up losing a lot of TV viewers who would rather watch Olympic hockey than NHL hockey.

[Eurotwit]

You know the Finns play on and grow up on hybrid ice, unlike anyone else in Europe.

Their ice surface is in between “international ice” and NHL ice.

[Varda]

Just wanted to say that that is an interesting take on the Miracle on Ice. You are right about the quality of players, there were many NHL draft picks on that team. As I recall Jim Craig played for the Atlanta Flames a week or two after the Olympics. The one thing I might take issue with is that nobody knew the team was very good. That was the one Olympics I seriously considered attending and it was because of the US team. It was widely known however that hockey tickets were the most difficult to get. The anticipation for that event was pretty high.

In your later post you are off the mark about the NHL getting a boost by Olympic hockey viewing. Posts on hockey business boards pretty clearly show no effect on ratings. Since NBC’s Olympic property isn’t helping their NHL property, there maybe nothing pressuring the NHL to continue with the Olympics except the players association.

[Alberta's Child]

Thanks. From what I've read, there were plenty of empty seats in Lake Placid for the first U.S. game against Sweden. The U.S. pulled out an unexpected tie.

What really put the U.S. team on the map was the 7-3 victory over Czechoslovakia in the second game of the preliminary round. This was pretty startling because the Czechs were considered the #2 team in the world after the Soviets at the time. Also, this was the game where TV viewers all over the world got a close-up look at U.S. coach Herb Brooks ...

Click Here

The scenario was this:

A Czech player -- who will forever be remembered simply as “Number 3” -- had decked U.S. center Mark Johnson with a cheap shot, and Brooks was all over him from behind the bench. It’s obvious that the Czech player was using a Koho brand hockey stick!

Brooks and the U.S. team got something of a cult following from casual viewers all over the U.S. as a result of this incident. LOL.