Hockey Thoughts

-Sunday's gold medal hockey match...wow. These are the rare moments when I'm reminded how much I loved hockey when I was 10, before the '95 New Jersey Devils came along with their stupid neutral-zone trap and ruined it for everybody who happens not to love 2-1 and 1-0 games in which 70% of the action happens in the middle of the rink. This game was absolutely phenomenal, as was much of the tournament. Team USA came out looking tight and nervous, while the Canadiens seemed like they remembered, "Oh yeah, we are supposed to be the best at this!" After Canada took a 2-0 lead, we got to watch the game slowly turn. We snuck a goal in and watch our confidence grow. Canada tightened up. With about 2:50 to go in the game, I turned to my brother-in-law and asked, "Where's Parise?" At the 25-second mark he said, "Here! I'm right here!" We thought USA had it. Ryan Miller was the best goalie of the whole tournament, and we had him holding it down in OT. However, the heir to the game had other plans. Sidney Crosby found the smallest of holes and fired the puck through it, giving Canada the gold and setting off hysteria in Canada. Well done, ya hosers.

-As for Team USA, they have nothing to be ashamed of. They took the favorite in the tournament to the absolute edge, but just couldn't quite nudge them off the cliff. They played the best tournament they possibly could have, and never let up for even a minute. Possibly the most well-earned silver medals in history. Zach Parise showed himself to be a star, and Ryan Miller made a case to be considered the best goalie playing right now. As you know, our motto here is "Losing is for Losers," and though it hurts me a little to say...well done, ya losers.

-If I were running the NHL, my long-term plan for the league would be to have watched the 2010 Olympic tournament, and then just do everything they did. I don't understand why the NHL has to have different rules. Why is the rink smaller in the NHL? Why did it take 80 years to do away with the center red line? What benefit does that dumbass trapezoid behind the net provide to anybody? Why is fighting viewed as important, instead of something that grinds the game to a screeching halt and is the exact same nearly every time (if you've seen one hockey fight, you've seen them all)? Most importantly, why the need for a ridiculous amount of commercials instead of having everything sponsored, allowing for significantly longer stretches of uninterrupted play at a faster pace? I feel like there are no good answers to any of these questions, and if there are, I am going to choose to ignore them.