Sunday, February 21, 2010

Projected Olympic Hockey Tournament Matchups

Wondering about potential quarterfinal matchups for the Men's Olympic Hockey, I went out onto my good friend the Internet and found this detailed bracket at On the Forecheck... which I came across at From the Rink.

Here's the upshot as of right now with Sweden having a (presumably) commanding 3-0 lead in their game against Finland (assuming everything is correct on the aforementioned sites and I have no reason to think it's not)...

Big assumption: nothing shocking (you know, shocking to the level of say... the US beating Canada today) happens in the Playoff Qualifier games that will happen Tuesday and precede the Wednesday quarterfinal games.

NoonPST - U.S. vs Switzerland: the U.S. would certainly be favored, but as the San Jose Sharks found out last year... Jonas Hiller can play well in net, and in this case, it would be for Switzerland rather than the Anaheim Ducks.

4:30PST - Russia vs Canada: Uhhh... that sounds like a good game, and in a quarterfinal! Here's to not expecting to see Martin Brodeur back in net.

7:00 or 9:00PST - Sweden vs Slovokia

7:00 or 9:00PST - Czech Republic vs Finland

Winners of these games would then meet in the Friday semifinals... which might look like this:

NoonPST - U.S. vs Czech/Finland winner

6:30PST - Sweden vs Canada/Russia winner

Wow, that one game today make a world of difference for both the U.S. and Canada. The U.S. with a very advantageous draw going forward and Canada with... the exactly opposite.

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