Was Canada the team that we all expected that it would be?
Canada was certainly the indisputable favorite of the Winter Olympic hockey tournament, however during the first group matchups it wasn’t the unbeatable team we all thought that it would be. Let’s analyze Canada’s race to the gold in more detail…
On Feb 16 the action begun with Canada vs. Norway a simple match where Canada showed a tremendous power during the first minutes of the game scoring 4 goals, this made fans think that the gold was sure thing for the Canadian hockey team, however after having the game on the pocket the explosive Canadians became passive and lazy on the field. The final score: 8-0 helped to cover these weaknesses.
On Feb 18 the rival was Switzerland, a team with low expectations but a great fight spirit. Canada played inconsistently throughout the game but did good enough to win the game. The final score: 2-3. Although victorious, some concerns were brought up by the hockey experts due to the poor game displayed by the Canadians, the alarms were set for a team plague with star hockey players that constantly define the NHL odds.
On Feb 21 the story was completely different with a Canadian team surprised by an offensive USA team. Canada came to the field playing as they did on the final minutes against Norway thinking that it would be enough to control the Americans, that cost them several early goals and when they realized that USA was not Norway or Switzerland, it was already too late for a response. The final score: 5-3 in favor of USA.
Conclusion: Canada made mistakes but at the end who doesn’t. One thing the Canadians did not fail was to change their strategy on time to rule the tournament on the 2nd and 3rd rounds.
Congratulations Canada!