I felt the same way when the NBA Board of Governors ruled the Kings shouldn't be pulled out of Sacramento and Hansen's plans for a tax-sucking arena became stillborn.

?

The Finnish roster is almost entirely made up of NHL players (14) or the professional league in (mostly) Russia (8), just like the Russian team.

Also, the verb is "medal", not "metal".

Same here. I find myself rooting against all the Russians.

@3: Not in Finland it isn't. The Finn's metal like almost nobody else. And crushing the home team while the tyrant despairs is brutally metal. I think Putin is probably going to have to go home and kill some puppies to cheer up.

What about what's going on in Ukraine? Seems like a much more important story.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/blog/20…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK6Ngbna…

The general Russian outlook regarding these games was basically that if their men's hockey team takes gold, they do not care about other events, and if they fail to take a medal, no amount of other medals can make up for it.

So the schadenfreude is extra special.

For an alternative take on what is going on in Ukraine, reports from the Stop NATO blog of Rick Rozoff: http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com

And the losing goalie was Colorado's own girlfriend-beating drunk Semyon Varlamov. It sucked enough that he's an abusive alcoholic, but now he's a choker too. AND we're stuck with him because he just signed a lucrative contract extension. It's not the albatross that Vancouver has with Luongo, but it was still a poorly thought out decision by Avs management, rewarding a hot streak while ignoring what his career stats had to say. (And sweeping the whole abusive drunk thing under the rug while we're at it.)

Funny it was Finland. Many people forget that it was the Finns, not the Soviets, who the US beat in the 1980 Gold Medal game.

Is it "the [,,,] civilizing impact of sports fandom" that makes you feel that way about Russians winning or losing a game?

From Immanuel Wallerstein on Ukraine: http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/20…
for those who thought the Rozoff stuff was too russky-sourced.

@12 Well, it's more civilized than nuking them, isn't it?

I'm old enough to remember the Miracle on Ice and also the Women's miracle back in 98 and I feel glee at the Russians losing because the lack of a work ethic that many talented Russian players bring to the table in the NHL (Pavel Datsuk and a few exceptions) came to bear fruit in the Olympics.

@12: Yes, being happy that a tyrant's favorite team lost a game is so dreadfully uncivilized, the shock caused my monocle to fall off and break, and now I must purchase a new one.

This is almost as bad as when my wife cracked her pearls from clutching them so tightly.

What a ghastly, uncivilized affair it all is. Such savagery. Ta-ta for now, for I am off to my dressage lesson.

Unfortunately the Latvians (coached by my Buffalo Sabres head coach Ted Nolan) couldn't pull off the upset against the Canadians. That would have been on par with the US/Soviet Miracle on Ice game. That was the most drama filled game I've seen this year, even after Canada scored with eight minutes to go, making it 2-1.

@13, yeah, that's SO much better, a guy who thinks that an alliance of Germany-France-Russia, and one of US-China-Japan-Korea, are likely things. I think Wallerstein plays too much Diplomacy.

While it's true that the US would like to see former client states break away more completely from Russia, and weaken Russia, it does not follow that the big Western European democracies are excited to get into bed with Putin -- quite the opposite, as we're seeing here. We're seeing France and Germany warning the Russian-backed Ukraine government to back off.

Wallerstein appears to be one of those fellows who can't get enough of the shirtless Russian strongman, and are uninterested in looking at him realistically as long as there's a perfidious American to castigate instead.

Russia needs to expand its sphere of influence, as it continues to collapse both inside and out. Ukraine is a big prize. Most rational observers are less interested in moving the pieces on the board than they are in preventing a conflagration that hurts everybody, which this increasingly looks like.

@18 I agree with most of your comment but balkanization of those not directly in our sphere of influence is a favorite policy of neocons (see Iraq, Yugoslavia,..) so I don't think they see current events as especially hurtful to their cause.

@16 Even Goldy realizes that the Russian hockey team had more than one fan (many Russian people, I hear). Personally, I am happy for the Finns but I am kind of sad for the Russians. This tendency to paint everyone with the same broad ugly brush for essentially nationalistic reasons is what I find uncivilized.

@10: At least Vancouver's albatross has one Olympic Gold medal (so far...)

@17 Should have been 3-1. Too bad the referee missed this.

@20, too bad he isn't paid to win gold, huh?

@20 sorry, no goal. Puck must be completely over the line to count as a goal, which it clearly wasn't. And while there are a lot of people calling for a penalty shot, don't believe the hype. His hand didn't close over the puck, grabbing it, he pushed it, so it is a legal hand pass in the defensive zone. I'm a goalie, so I try to stay aware of what my team can and can't do when bailing me out of trouble.

Per IIHF rule 559

559 - HANDLING THE PUCK WITH THE HANDS BY A PLAYER
a) A player shall be permitted to stop or bat a puck in the air with his open hand or push it along the ice with his hand and the play shall not be stopped unless in the opinion of referee he has deliberately directed the puck to a teammate or has allowed his team to *****gain an advantage in any zone other than the defending zone***** in which case the play shall be stopped and a face off conducted (See Rule 490). *****Play will not be stopped for any hand pass by players in their own defending zone.*****
...
d) If any defending player, except the goalkeeper, *****picks up the puck with his hands from the ice in his goal crease*****, the Referee shall award to the non-offending team a:
Penalty Shot (PS)

Fortunately, it didn't end up being a focal point in the game, and we can look forward to a great USA vs. Canada game Friday morning!

@21: Fair point.

@22: I'd dispute you on "deliberately directed the puck to a teammate" given that he pulled the puck under his own goalie. But I agree there is room for interpretation. (Besides, that Latvian kid was a brick wall. I'm not sure the penalty shot would have gone in anyway. He stopped 55 shots! Tampa better pull him up from the minors, stat.)

@23 you are allowed to do that in the defensive zone. That rule only applies outside the defensive zone. But really you are completely right, we should be talking about how amazing he did in goal, and just how enjoyable it was to watch from a drama perspective.

@3 When did you meet my wife's family? SISU!

I just wonder if the Russian hockey team is going to go to Stalag #13 for this huge loss? Maybe putin (who is a closet fag) will forgive them their weakness and donate his share of the illegal money he made from the Olympics to the "Let's all be gay for our country week". Probably not .......

FUCK putin , Fuck cccp. 👆