screenshot from Vancouver Olympics 2010 - Ice Hockey
I can't decide if I'm more surprised that the Chinese were able to field a womens Olympic ice hockey team or that the US Women's team beat them 12-1 in the preliminary round.
On Monday's PTI episode Wilbon and Kornheiser debated whether Women's ice hockey should even be in the Olympics because Canada and USA continue to completely dominate the other countries. At first I thought the whole debate was total crap but after seeing the scores of some of these US and Canada games....yeah, they might have a point. 12 goals to 1 is pretty bad, but check out the shots on goal statistic of this USA vs. China game:
USA 61 shots...China 7 shots. 7!! 7!
Are you kidding me? That's not a game. And too bad the mercy rule isn't in effect. Those poor Chinese women. I know USA is AWEsome, but c'mon this is a little too much. And don't even get me started on the 18-0 win Canada had over Slovakia. Outrageous.
Is it really worth having a tournament when two teams are so far superior to every other country? It would be a shame to have to take away the Olympic experience from the Canadian and American women who have trained so hard for this moment, but how much pride and glory can really be attained when you're destroying your opponents beyond embarrassment? Hopefully Sweden, Finland, Russia or Norway will give the two North American powerhouses a challenge, but I'm not holding my breath.
2 comments:
While it was definitely an upset, Sweden did beat the US at the Olympics in 2006. I don't particularly expect that to happen again, but the sport's inclusion in the Olympics will help international women's programs get better over time. Whether it's the role of the Olympics to help popularize a sport is definitely up for debate though...
Wilbon and Kornheiser did mention how the US Men's basketball team used to destroy other countries but over time other countries have become more competitive. Who knows how much the Olympics influence the development of each sport in other countries but I wonder how the IOC decides (or if they will) to include or exclude a sport for not being competitive enough among the participating countries.
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