USA! USA! USA!

While hockey fans around North America have been frustrated with everything that's gone on in "The Season That Wasn't" (i.e. NHL Lockout), diehards have been captivated by the action of the 2013 World Juniors Hockey Championship in Russia.  Hey, when you've gone over 100 days without NHL hockey, you welcome any type of competitive hockey when you can get it.

As expected, Team Canada was the prohibitive favorite to win the tournament, going 4-0-0 in round-robin and looking fairly dominant in doing so.  Team USA, on the other hand, hit some early bumps in the road during their round-robin play, losing to both Russia and Canada before dominating Slovakia and Czech Republic.

There was a lot of buzz going into this rematch, with a berth to the Gold Medal game on the line.  Tracking the buzz on Twitter, Canadian fans were pretty confident that their team would beat the Americans again.  At one point, I even brought up the brash prediction made by Seth Jones, the young defensive player for Team USA, who boldly predicted that the Americans would win the whole tournament.  Of course, that was met with distain from Canadian hockey fans.

Yuri Kuzmin/AP KHL

Of course, luck would have it that the Canadians played their worst game of the series, while the Americans played their best, crushing the favorites, 5-1, and destroying the hopes of millions of citizens across the great country of Canada in the process.

The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette

After the big win by Team USA, I went to the Twitter feed to see the feedback and of course, for every congratulatory tweet from an American, there was a snarky comment from a disgruntled Canadian fan. Not all Canadian tweets were negative, mind you, but it was pretty clear that the majority of Canadian fans were NOT HAPPY with the result.  Look, everyone knows I love Canada for many things, including their passion for hockey (and the Habs).  But I got to be honest, they aren't always the most gracious losers, especially in a big spot.  But I guess when you wear your heart on your sleeve, these things can happen.

In any case, now Team USA has one more hill to climb, and that's against Team Sweden this Saturday morning (8am), for the Gold Medal.  Will the Americans pull off one more win and make Seth Jones look like a genius in the process?

Stay tuned....


*NOTE: We will air the Gold Medal game LIVE this Saturday (8am w/audio), so if you are looking to watch the game, make your way to Third and Long and watch it with us!


Cheers!