Sweden lost to Switzerland 4-2 their chances of winning a medal now become a lot more difficult as they will have a lot tougher placement in the next round.
As for who will win .... as of right now I like Canada's chances but am a little worried about the lack of spread out scoring. The Heatley, Nash, and Getzlaf line has offcourse been unstoppable they have just physically dominated every team they have come up against.
Basically who do i think are going to dominate this tournament... Canada looks likely to win but I would say watchout for Switzerland... they upset both the Czechs and Canada at the Olympics in 06 and Swiss hockey has grown a lot stronger in the past few years mostly due to solid goaltending and strong defence. The Russians and Czechs are dangerous as ever..... ghost teams are Finland who don't score a lot but don't let a lot either.... and the USA who have a young but skilled team who gave Canada a good run for their money.
As of right now I am not convinced any team is a class above the rest.
One nation which I have been veyr disappointed with has been Germany. They have more depth then Slovakia, and Switzerland but don't put nearly as much success... one reason for this has been the German's insistance on teaching their players from junior all the way to the pro leagues the torpedo and the trap instead of working on making their skills better.... the same thing was going on in Sweden a few years ago and their juniors were really sucking hard. Skills > Tactics anyday
I am going to try and pick up tickets to see the final in Quebec I am passing through QC on the day so will see what I can do...
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<div class='quotemain'> I think Canada is going to walk away with this. They just have so much depth in terms of talent that despite the absurd numbers of Canadian players(far more than any other nation) still in the Stanley Cup playoffs, they can put a team of this caliber out on the ice. [/b]
Isn't Canada like the AB's in rugby? Always at the top but falling over when it counts...especially at the Winter Olympics?
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Pretty much. I think it has more to do with how much Canada, as a nation care about their Hockey. Teams like Russia and Sweden are probably on equal levels in terms of individual talent. I'd even say Russia could field a better team altogether with the likes of Malkin, Ovechkin, Kovalchuk.
Anyway, I reckon Sweden will take this out. They don't have as many players lost to the NHL playoffs as other teams do, their team looks very strong. [/b][/quote]
Your right when you say this.... the beauty of international hockey today is any of the top 8 or 9 teams in the world can win on any given day. And the teams that aren't in the top 8 or 9 do more often then not provide upsets. We had Belarus finish 4th at the 2002 olympics.... Latvia beat the USA in 2006.... Swiss beat Canada and Czechs in Torino..... lots of really good game Germany, Switzerland, Latvia, Belarus have all run the big guns Canada, USA, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia very cl;ose the past few years and the gap has closed immensely.