Super Thursday?

It's 5:30 AM here in tropical Gwangju, South Korea and I'm up sipping tea and watching the first of four monster Olympic hockey games. So far it's 0 - 0 between the U.S. and Switzerland. Next is Canada/Russia, then Fin/Czech and finally at 2 in the afternoon the Swedes will play the Slovaks. Should be a fun day!

This game wasn't 2 minutes old before one of the announcers made the bonehead comment about the American defenceman Brian Rafalski and how "dangerous" his pinching is. First of all the pinch Rafalski made today to bring about that stupid statement didn't hurt the Americans; secondly, Rafalski got back and broke up a false two-on-one the Swiss had; and thirdly take away Rafalski and his "dangerous" pinching and the U.S. would have lost to Canada on Super Sunday at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Yes, Brian Rafalski. Everyone is talking about Ryan Miller as the guy who beat Canada. He was spectacular, no doubt about it. The Canucks outshot the U.S. 2 to 1 but I would have given Rafalski the player of the game. He didn't get any award. In fact he probably got a stern talking to from the coach after the game for providing the offense that won the U.S. the game.

Defencemen like Rafalski who are pinching are playing offense and defence and they're expending a lot of energy. This is not lazy hockey. But guys who stay out there for a lot of minutes tend to be the defensive defencemen. They're not getting as tired because defensive play is easier to play.

We've seen a lot of lesser teams taking on the giants by employing a simple strategy: drawing the highly skilled teams into a defensive mode that suits the underdogs. It's a very easy thing to do against a team made up of NHL stars who have played a ton of games already this year in the NHL. I have a funny feeling that I'll be watching games like this all day long today.

I just hope we have ONE defenceman on team Canada who pulls a Rafalski and starts taking offensive chances. I don't even care if he is the cause of a goal or two by the Russians. If he's good enough, he'll likely be the cause of 2 or 3 goals for Canada. And it'll most likely be one of the young guys like Drew Doughty if it's anyone.

This is exactly why the highest scoring defenceman in the NHL, Mike Green, wasn't chosen for the Candadian team. He's not even on their list of reserves for crying out loud!

Last game, (Canada/U.S.), I saw guys like Weber, Kieth, Pronger, etc. BEHIND the blue line when Canada had puck posession in the U.S. zone! What is THAT nonsense? It makes for some low-scoring hockey that if not for the fact that the score is close, would be a bit boring. If I were shelling out the kind of dough the fans are paying to watch this I think I'd be a bit upset.

The pattern in most games, and I've watched them all, has been the stronger team coming out and playing the first few minutes of energetic, offensive hockey and after that settling into the lower energy, defensive, "safe" hockey they are mistakenly calling "old time hockey." That's when teams like Germany, Switzerland, Belarus and Norway have been making these unlikely runs at the giants of hockey. As I type there's less than a minute left in the second period, shots are 32-8 for U.S. but the score is 0-0. This, believe it or not, is exactly where the Swiss want to be. Oh wait a minute now, there's a goal. What do you know, Rafalski was pinching. Is it a goal or had time expired? I guess it's still 0-0.

So here we go again. This is a perfect example of the kind of hockey I was hoping we wouldn't see at these Olympics. I'm still enjoying it but I could be enjoying it more if the Offensive stars were allowed to shine. 32 shots might sound like they're playing offense but the shots aren't the quality you'd get if the defence was pinching and the stars were allowed to freewheel. A stat more indicitave of the actual play in the game has been the ZERO shots that have made it through on the 5 power plays so far. That's hard to watch for a guy like me who likes offense.

I'm actually enjoying watching the women's hockey. They seem to be doing all the stuff that I've been saying the boys should be doing. They're scoring a lot of goals from one-timers by left wingers who shoot right or right wingers who shoot left. They're taking wrist shots from the point and allowing players to deflect them in. The men's hockey I'm watching has included a lot of slap shots from the point that are being blocked or the player's sticks are breaking or the shots are going 2 feet wide. Danny Boyle has done this a lot for Canada.

Having said all that, Team Canada might actually try to play the defensive game against the highly skilled Russians. This might just be the correct way to play them. But I'd still rather see offense.

Well what do you know! The U.S. scored. On the power play they got a shot through and Parise put in the rebound. Guess who shot the shot from the point. Rafalski of course.

The thing about playing this defensive hockey is that you have to depend heavily on your goaltender. Even though the goalies for Canada have big names, I'd say the Canadian goaltending hasn't been good enough for the defensive style they've been playing. Just another reason to score some more goals.

Anyhoo, I sure hope I don't have to suffer through another 1-0 game when Canada faces the Russians. It's a shame one of these two great teams will be going home without a medal but I guess that's what happens when you don't play to your strengths.

Nonetheless, go Canada go! I'm nervous!