EHM The Blue Line

Since i'm watching the game via YLE internet stream, i didn't see the last 10mins of the second period because only the sound remained. But it seems like Lehtonen is keeping the game still at 0-0. He's earning my trust already, although i havent seen the saves he made :p

I would've loved to see those too; the commentator was extatic about them, but I've learned not to trust him.

For some reason, the Swedish-language broadcast has both sound (in Swedish, duh) and picture.

Wow. Finland scores. I'm so impressed.

Now that was somewhat lazy effort. Kari will be our number one from now on i dare say.

That was a horrible game. And as usual, all the Head Coach did was stand there and hope for the best. He just about said this out loud in the post-game interview (in different terms, naturally).

The controversy is really heating up here in Canada over Shane Doan. It's gotten to the point that a parliamentary commission will be questioning those who dealt with the issue in the first place. This is a two-year old case in which the accused was exonerated of his alleged 'crimes.' Not that making fun of French-Canadians is wrong. Quebec has boiled my blood for years and the fact that political leaders looking for votes in the province have started messing with a decent young man and the team representing the country in our 'unofficial official' sport only makes things worse. Can someone explain to me why we want to keep these clowns around? I mean, I know they're not all bad, but as a non-French-Canadian I'm getting awfully tired of being held hostage.

Sorry if this is kind of off-topic, but it's relevant here and I would suspect that the issue is a pretty significant distraction to the team. Guys respect their captains, even if they're just thrown together in a rush and spend most of their time playing against each other; Doan was chosen in the first place because he HAS that respect. If a team's captain is being attacked, there's no way a team can just ignore it. Hopefully Team Canada uses it as fuel for the fire.

Okay... I'm calm now...

Right... here goes...

Sweden - Finland 1 - 0

The game was in Finlands control, and I was surprised at how defencively Sweden played, not really even trying to make any good offencive plays. They scored one lame goal, which was more a result of Finnish goalie Kari Lehtonen's mishap than Sweden's good scoring talent.

But they came out winners, and I guess that's what hockey is all about. Finland controlled the game, while Sweden was in the receiving end, barely holding on to their one goal lead for two and a half periods. But controlling the game is useless, if you can't score. Finland had plenty of opportunities but they kept aiming for the Swedish goalie's stomach (who by they way, played a brilliant game).

Both teams have a problem if they don't improve from this. So far Sweden has been like a tornado scoring goals on it's weaker opponents, but against Finland they were mediocre. Where as Finland - with our common problem of not being able to score goals, when we need one - also need to improve to make it "all the way".

We'll have to see how Sweden plays against Russia, who most definately won't have the same problem with scoring goals as Finland did. And how is team Finland going to play against the other big teams, now that we know we can control the puck, but we can't score one single *BLEEPING* goal!

On the other hand, Finland vs Sweden games have always been low scoring and very physical, and Team Sweden has proven they are very good on the tactical aspects of the game, but if their tactic was to score one sloppy goal and then wait two and a half periods, relying on their goalie, I'm not sure I understand that tactic, although this time it worked...

Sheesh... thanks for listening... that helped a bit...

I'm starting to get sick of Aki Berg. In every game he has been often late and the situations have resulted in good scoring chances, just like today. Also the penalty he took in late game was supid.

I'm also surprised how defensive Sweden was.

Heh. Finland is starting to find out what Leaf fans have been saying for years! Note: leaf fans blame everything on Harold Ballard and Aki Berg.

Tasku wrote:Finland had plenty of opportunities but they kept aiming for the Swedish goalie's stomach (who by they way, played a brilliant game).

He looked nervous at the beginning but soon got into a groove. But our FWs made things pretty easy for him; most shots hit him in those three crowns on the jersey. And for some reason, our players can't shoot high from close quarters, but to even things up they seldom shoot low from further out.

If there's something positive to be said about the game, I'll go with this: I like the way Lehtonen bounced back from the lone goal of the game -- he essentially scored it himself (the shot was about a foot wide).

Yeah, I agree with you there. I noted the exact same thing. Lehtonen seemed to get over his mistake really well and played a good game in the end.

Yea, goaltender amnesia is wonderful. I suppose it's something you either have or you don't; I've never played organized hockey, but when I was a kid I did play some peewee soccer as a goalkeeper. And I know I don't have it.

The Finnish coach is keeping his goalie selection for thursday a secret. Norrena made himself one my favorite goalies in the spring of 1995, but Westerlund has to be nuts if he starts anyone but Lehtonen.

Did anyone watch the RUS - CZE quarterfinal live? The camera picked out former USSR national team coach Viktor Tikhonov from the crowd. I first thought he was sitting next to a christmas tree, but then, from somewhere in the middle of all that decoration, two hands came out clapping, and I realized I was looking at a highly decorated -- and I *do* mean highly -- Russian military officer. Geez, the guy must have had 15 pounds of metal on his uniform jacket.

I'm watching a recap of it right now...

If Finland doesn't get "it", I sure hope Russia will. Their game is just a joy to watch!

RESPECT!

Wow...the Russians fell through again. After displaying pretty good team spirit earlier in the tournament, the individualistic (that a word?) Russia made its return today.

Wow. The way Russia had been playing before this game i was somewhat worried about our chances to win the game. But darn i love Mikko Koivu. Gotta love the way he raised Jeremenkos stick.

Come on Sweden, we'd love to get some payback.

Team defense and Lehtonen saved the day. The defense played an almost mistake-free game.

However, I have to admit that I thought Bergenheim lost it for us in the 1st. Sheesh, there's another Finnish 1st round pick who seems to be on his way from top prospect to whatever Jani Rita is these days.

Once again, I didn't see the game, because I was working (thank God, no work tomorrow - except night shift), but I don't think I've never been so happy at work, when I heard thru the radio Finland was thru to the FINALS!!!

Finland - Canada... this should be interesting... hope I don't piddle my pants tomorrow, while biting my nails to smithereens...

Good luck in the final, Finns. I'll be rootin' for you.

Canada 3 - 0 Finland at the start of period three, and it's clear we were very nervous for the first 30 minutes of the game, and it might be we've woken up to the game a bit too late - not to mention Canada's excellent defence. Also, we always seem to have some sort of mental pressure on winning the finals pulling us down - it's been 12 years since we last won the gold, although we've been a frequent visitor to the finals. There's mounting pressure at home on finally winning the gold - silver just isn't good enough anymore. It seems this pressure always makes our team nervous in the finals, and the longer it takes, the harder it's going to get to brake this spell of always coming home with the silver.

Fingers crossed something's going to happen, that'll change everything in third period, but honestly, I'm not as upset at the fact that I have to go to work in half an hour, not as much as I thought I would be before the game had started.

Expectation of taking home gold is a good thing Tasku. As you probably know anything less has been considered a failure for Canada forever. So if Finland is reaching the stage where silver, bronze are considered failure by the people there it bodes well for your hockey program. Unfortunately, for you and your country it means failure for at least one more year. Cause you had the gold medal kids in the final!!

YAY CANADA!

Congratulations to Canada. The best team won, as occasionally happens. Not a bad battle by Team Finland at the end, but I guess reality just crept up on them -- you can't build a Lexus out of Yugo parts.

Congrats Canada, you earned the victory. I'm widdled, no doubt, mostly because of the way finland played in the first two periods. Oh well, there's always the next year.

batdad wrote:Expectation of taking home gold is a good thing Tasku. As you probably know anything less has been considered a failure for Canada forever. So if Finland is reaching the stage where silver, bronze are considered failure by the people there it bodes well for your hockey program. Unfortunately, for you and your country it means failure for at least one more year. Cause you had the gold medal kids in the final!!

YAY CANADA!

I'm not surprised that it has always been considered a failure in Canada to bring home anything but the gold, but Finland on the other hand hasn't been among the top performers in the Championships for as long as Canada has. You've always been the best and most enthusiastic hockey country in the world. (I'm no expert on hockey history, but I think somewhere between the 80's and 90's we were slowly making gains on the other big countries). And even now, every time we make it to the finals it's considered a "surprise" by all foreign media - this year it was supposed to be Canada - Russia in the finals. There was no doubt little 'ol Finland's all around average team, with no superstars, would be steamrolled by Malkin, Ovechkin, Brylin, Gonchar and pals...

Congrats to Canada...

We'll get you next year...

batdad wrote:So if Finland is reaching the stage where silver, bronze are considered failure by the people there it bodes well for your hockey program.

That's an excellent point. We're probably getting there now, but we should've already been there for 10 years. And I put the blame on the leaders of the Finnish Hockey Federation (mainly it's Iron Chancellor Kalervo Kummola) and former national team coach Hannu Aravirta who had the job from 1997 to 2003. Those were years when we had the player material to compete against anyone in the Worlds, and during that period the national team went into every World Champs with the championship as their explicitly stated goal.

Aravirta made an art form out of getting results that were 'good enough' -- the end tally was 3 silver medals and a bronze (plus a bronze medal in Nagano; more about this in a bit). At least they were good enough for the hockey federation, who kept giving him contract extensions even though he failed to meet the explicitly stated goal each and every spring. That may have been a good business decision, because playing up the medals the team was now getting more or less regularly may have been a good sponsor-pleasing move, but it was a horrible hockey decision: it was, in effect, a statement that despite all the pre-tournament talks the federation wasn't really interested in winning. There was a separate level of 'good enough' that didn't include winning.

We (meaning the general public) are only now starting to get rid of that idea, but unfortunately right now a lot of things would have to go our way in the NHL post-season for us to get a truly competitive team for the Worlds. What's more, I suspect that the Finnish Hockey Federation may still cling on to the 'good enough' approach -- their choice for the future coach is a guy who's done a good job coaching one of the low-budget Finnish Elite League teams but who doesn't have a great championship record; his resumé reeks of 'good enough'.

As for Aravirta, he seems like a nice guy. If I'd have to go for a beer with a hockey coach, I'd much rather take him than Westerlund (or Summanen, god forbid). He's a good PR guy, but as a coach he has one fatal flaw, the fundamental inability to react to changes in a game. If things start going badly for the team, he just freezes. This, by the way, is what shadows his best accomplishment as the national team coach, the bronze medal from the Nagano olympics. That was a good achievement, but the team had a chance for more in the semi-final against Russia. Russia went up 3-0 early and the Finnish goalie Jarmo Myllys was obviously not having one of his better days, and Aravirta did... nothing whatsoever. Despite this, Team Finland managed to stage something of a comeback (and those of you who watched the game may remember that the one talking to players and giving orders in the Finnish bench during the comeback was not coach Aravirta but Saku Koivu). It was cut short by Myllys giving up a soft goal at a time when the Russian team looked ready to collapse. So, in effect we lost that game twice. As for the win in the bronze medal game, we have Ari Sulander to thank for that (and thank him Aravirta did, by trying to force him into a hero role in the following years when Sulander clearly wasn't in top form anymore).

OK, rant over.