Drunk on Women’s Hockey

Two periods into the USA v. Russia women’s hockey matchup (I’m assuming this will be the only one), I have a few observations to add to my post from Saturday:

• OMGSOMUCHWOMENSHOCKEY!!1!!!11!!1 It’s so awesome, I kinda can’t believe it.
• The US team is just as dominant as Canada, but it feels like they pulled up a bit in their 12-1 win over China. Luckily Russia hasn’t completely given up in this game, so the US hasn’t slowed up as much. Their scoring does seem almost lazy at this point, though; like, “oh, deflection into the net. OK.”
• The reason Cammie Granato seems more relaxed doing off-camera color commentary during play than doing on-camera commentary between periods? It’s not Cammie Granato. That’s A.J. Mleczko doing the game color commentary. I’m glad I finally figured that out.
• I hope we see Erica Lawler again in the medal rounds. She sat this game out after a full-speed crash into the boards in the game against China.
• TWO HAT TRICKS FOR JENNY POTTER. (Did I mention that she and I have something in common? Yep, we’re both the only moms on our respective hockey teams.)

Photo by Tyler Ingram

• I did end up watching the Canada-Switzerland game, and I’m glad I did. Switzerland played much better than they did against Sweden in their opener, in my opinion.
• I can’t wait until the rest of the world starts investing in their women’s hockey programs the way the US and Canada do. A.J. mentioned a couple times during the China game that there are a billion people in China, and only 166 registered women hockey players, and Slovakia goalie Zuzana Tomcikova rightly pointed out that when ice hockey was first added as an Olympic sport back in the 1920s, Canada regularly beat opponents 20 or 30 to 0. The rest of the world eventually caught up in the men’s game, and I look forward to the day that happens in the women’s game.

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