Olympic Pool Update (Day 6, Feb 20)

I thought that this game was going to be much closer than it was.  The Americans and Slovaks got off to a pretty tight start, no score after the 1st period, but once the Americans got on the board, they didn't really look back.  A 2-man disadvantage, which included a 5-minute major and game misconduct to Michal Cajkovsky, already down 1-0, didn't help the Slovaks too much and the Americans cruised to a 5-1 win and to a date with the Czechs tonight.

James Wisniewski scored on the 2-man advantage to make the game 2-0, eventually getting credit for the winning goal and also chipped in with an assist for the 4-point effort in this one, thanks to the medal round bonus point.  Troy Terry had 3 assists and Ryan Donato had a couple of goals, guiding the way for the Americans.

The match-up between Slovenia and Norway was a tightly contested affair, as one would have expected.  Norway coming away with the 2-1 overtime win, earning their way to a date with the Russians tonight.  The Norwegian keeper, Lars Haugen, managed to keep his team afloat, making 33 saves for the victory, turning away a Slovenian team that was hit hard by a doping incident, found earlier in the day.

There were two players in the hockey pool in this one, Jan Mursak and Patrick Thoresen, each coming away with an assist, but Thoresen moves on in the tournament.

The Finns didn't have too much trouble with the Korean hosts, dispatching them, 5-2, in one of the two late games.  Yes, the Finns gave up a pair of goals, bringing the Korean total up to three goals in the tourney, but we'll quickly look past it.

Eeli Tolvanen had 3 assists in this one and Miro Heiskanen scored the winner, so both players walked out of this game with 3 points a piece.

This game sets up a big quarterfinal match-up between Canada and Finland, which will be one of the early morning games on Wednesday.

Finally, in the other late game, the Swiss were upset by the Germans, 2-1 in overtime, making for a couple of semi-upsets in this qualification round, if you count the Norway win as a slight upset as well.  All six players were playing in the pool, but none were able to register a point.  Those six players are now three moving forward, as the Germans will get the Swedes in the quarterfinals, which will be a very tall task indeed.