Time To Come Home

Not a good Olympics for North America. One team just never got anything going, the other not enough gusto to finish. Both Canada and USA are out of the men’s Olympic tournament. Both teams that seemed to dominate the action in 2002 could barely get it going in 2006.
Canada may be the biggest disappointment. They had a golden goal all along, but that was quickly snuffed out by a 20 year old NHL rookie that just happens to play for one of my favorite teams: Alex Ovechkin.

USA never even got off the ground. They could do just about anything they wanted to on the ice during the preliminaries except score. Then the major question that annoyed them before the games was goaltending. The goalie was the one thing that failed them in the first elimination round.

So North America, Canada and the US both, are going to be crying in their beers tonight. US will be bothered about if this was the right team for the games, Canada will be scowling at Wayne Gretzky and calling his wife and Rick Tocchet a distraction for the team. I am sure their will be conspiracy theories to last us a lifetime.

Now that they are out and my poor Swiss team was manhandled, who is left? Russia, Finland and Sweden as of 4:55 pm eastern. NBC must be fuming that there is nothing left to draw ratings.

This could also bite the NHL in the butt. With Canada and the US out, the NHL can now only feature the foreign players. Some who don’t even play in the NHL. That can’t bode well for many watching the remaining games.

My major disappointment lies on the US who brought two poorly constructed teams on both the men’s and women’s side. At least the women won a medal. Now that this ridiculousness is over lets get back to the stretch down to the Stanley Cup. And I am going to hang my USA jersey back in the closet for another 4 years.