The Daily Faceoff Show: What’s going on in Beijing?
As the Olympics continue to get underway in Beijing, China, the women’s hockey continues to be one of it’s bigger stories.
The women’s games have given viewers plenty of interesting hockey to watch as it continues on in the quarterfinals, with both Canadian and American teams punching their tickets to the semifinals.
Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna discussed both quarterfinal wins in today’s Daily Faceoff Show.
Seravalli: “We may be dealing with the best Team Canada that’s every been assembled, men’s or women’s. You see them roll over Sweden by an 11-0 margin, Sarah Fillier hat trick, what a revelation she’s been, another four point game for Marie Philip-Poulin.
And on the U.S. side, it’s a little bit of a different story, and a little bit of a different tournament. They knock off the Czechs by a 4-1 margin, they were trailing in that game as well, little bit of a nail biter for team U.S.A. I think everyone’s so focused on getting to that gold medal game that sometimes you lose sight of the process along the way.
Two more quarterfinal games to set up the semifinal matchups, we don’t know those yet, but I cannot wait for this potential Canada-U.S. showdown again for a gold medal because the way that first game played out in the preliminary round, the U.S. was actually the better team for such a large stretch of it, but you gotta come away from that feeling so deflated because you may have thrown your best punch at Canada, and yet they still won the game pretty decisively at the final score.”
McKenna: “Yeah, and this tournament is all about the women for me. The men’s tournament just doesn’t hold my attention in the same way, I watched the U.S. team just clobber China yesterday 8-0. And then you take that and you look at the women’s games that have been compelling, like the U.S. game, they had to come from behind to get that victory the other night, and you wonder how much that did come down off of that big tilt against Canada. It’s hard to sustain that level, even through a tournament, when you’re facing teams that are trying to make a name for themselves.
I know everybody think’s it’s just the U.S. and Canada in women’s hockey, and largely that’s been true, but in these short tournaments, you never know, and you gotta bring it every game.
So, I actually think for the U.S. women coming from behind, and having to earn that win to get past it, that’s going to be good for them, because they did outplay Canada for large portions of that early game. I can’t wait for that matchup either, and I think it’s going to be something that, as this tournament goes along, more people are going to clue in like “Hey, the women are the show here”. Like, this is the premiere women’s game that you’ll see in years, this is phenominal hockey.”
Seravalli: “I just wish we could see it more than every four years, it feels like even just once a year at the Worlds is just not enough.”