Monday, February 22, 2010

Falcons, Crowns, Maple Leafs and U-S-A

After last night's North American battle of the ice, the USA came out on top again over Canada. This makes the host's climb to the medal podium somewhat harder.
The Americans have gone with one goalie - RYAN MILLER.
Canada started strong with Vancouver netminder ROBERTO LUONGO, but changed to Martin Brodeur. The question begs, why ?
Sweden have Rangers' HENRIK LUNDQVIST wearing the blue and yellow crowns and look good for a repeat gold.
The Americans changed their jerseys from the "roller derby" logo to the classic 1960 / 1980 "U-S-A". It may have just been the inspiration ... 
... or HERB BROOKS looking down from hockey heaven.
The Russians hit the speed bump with Slovakia, but will still be in for a medal - this is ALEX OVECHKIN - spelled in Russian. It still means G-O-A-L-S.

The amazing fact that this Olympic hockey tournament is really the NHL on speed. A look at the 12 team rosters of goalies shows only 14 of 36 not in the NHL (3 that once were in the NHL). It includes at least half a dozen who could be Hall of Famers. And all but two teams had NHLs starting between the posts. 

SWEDEN
Henrik Lundqvist - Rangers
Jonas Gustavsson - Maple Leafs
Stefan Liv - Jonkoping
USA
Ryan Miller - Sabers
Tim Thomas - Bruins
Jonathan Quick - Kings
CANADA
Roberto Luongo -Canucks
Martin Brodeur - Devils
Marc-Andre Fleury - Penguins
RUSSIAN
Evgeni Nabkov - Sharks
Semyon Varlamov - Capitols
Ilya Brygalov - Coyotes
SLOVAKIA
Peter Budaj - Avalanche
Jaroslav Halak - Canadiens
Rastislav Stana - Severstal Cherepovets
CZECH REPUBLIC
Tomas Vukon - Panthers
Ondrej Pavelec - Thrashers
Jakub Stepanek - Vitkovice Ostava
SWITZERLAND
Jonas Hiller - Ducks
Ronnie Rueger - Kloten Flyers
Tobias Stephen - Geneva Servette
GERMANY
Thomas Geiss - Sharks
Dennis Endras - Augsberger
Dimitri Patzold - ERC Ingolstadt
BELARUS
Vitali Koval - Dynamo Minsk
Andrei Mezin - Dynamo Minsk
Maksim Maliutn - HK Vitebsk
FINLAND
Mikka Kiprusoff - Flames
Niklas Backstrom - Wild
Antero Nittimaki - Lightning  
LATVIA
3 goalies with Dinamo Riga

1 comment:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.