can't wait for tomorrow! This is gonna be fucking awesome!

Everything about this tournament is great, even the schedule. How perfect is this weekend's schedule...

Tomorrow at 2:30: Right away we get USA and its vs the easiest opponent in their group, Team Europe. Perfect way to start out the tourny.

Tomorrow at 7:00: Canada vs Czech, lots of pressure on Canada to come out strong in this short tournament, it will be interesting to see how they play in their first game

Sunday at 2:00: SWEDEN vs RUSSIA! I repeat, SWEDEN VS RUSSIA!

Sunday at 7:00: Finland vs North America: The most exciting team vs a team known for its ability to grind out international wins, should be an epic contrast in styles.


Top it off, I got this coming in the mail tomorrow...



Gonna be a great weekend

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Amazon Prime'd the drum of lube to go along with that adult novelty item? Free 2 Day shipping.

3-0 NoExit leading Team USA after 2. J Quick 7-10. Wall of Bishop should be Team USA's starting goalie after today.

Hockey powerhouses France/Germany/Slovakia* scoring goals. Quick's given up 3 goals to 3 players who combined for 30 goalies last season; Leon Draisaitl accounting for 19 of those, one fewer-less than his age.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjDuVd ... LkF_g/live

*7 ice hockey rinks in the entire country of Slovakia, according to Steve Levy; which sounds sparse, but Slovakia has half the population of the Chicagoland area and Chicago +burbs has around 15 rinks.

Team USA, still down 0-3 to the no name Euros, goes on the PP late in the 3rd. Kaner's positioned high and to the right on the play, point shoots and a scrum ensues in the crease--Kane skates in late and pokes his stick in at Halak, trying to get at the puck. Halak no-likey, whistle had already blown. Halak jabs back at Kane, then drops his stick and goes to get up and chase after Kane. Journeyman defensemen Andrej Sereka (not on Kane's team) protects Kane from Halak.

Sereka's played for 4 teams in the last 3 years--Oilers, Kings, Canes and Buffalo--where he started out and played for 7 seasons. Maybe Sereka knows Kane from Buffalo. Or Sereka's angling to end up on the Blackhawks with Kane someday. Prolly just realizes it's stupid to be fighting in this tourney.

didn't notice where Halak hit Kane but twitter's happy about it:

Team NA blanking the Finns, 4-0, mid-way through the 3rd.

Drouin from the Bolts, Nathan MacKinnon from Avs, Conor McDavid from the Oilers, Larkin Wings. ridiculously fast skaters with decent size. Seth Jones is apparently just as quick, but he's on defense. Maybe they should convert Jones to forward. He's not very good on D: Seth Jones has been on ice for 22 shot attempts (5v5) in 11 minutes . Ekblad also at 22, but 18 minutes.

How'd Saad sneak on this team? He's right at 23. Played well this game. But now he's on the Bluejackets with 3 other teammates on this TEAM NA. Either Bluejackets will be good soon or they'll be the Padres/AAAA franchise of the NHL.

Columbus with 4 players on the under 23. Jets have 3, including goalie "Connor" Hellebuyck, who looks like that parody of a millennial connor:

I'd place my bet on the latter. This has been a star-crossed franchise from day one. Their draft history is ghastly. Rick Nash never did a thing but pad his stats. Rusty Klesla turned into an okay defenseman...for Phoenix. Jakub Voracek has been an effective player for Philadelphia, where he came over for Jeff Carter, who practically Lindrosed his way out of Columbus and went to L.A. for Jack Johnson, who sucks. Steve Mason had a good rookie year, flamed out, and had to rehabilitate his career elsewhere. Pascal Leclaire, Alex Picard, Gilbert Brule, and Nikita Filatov, all top-10 picks, were complete busts. It's probably between Carolina and Columbus for worst drafting of the last 20 years.

There would seem to be some good stuff going on, but they're coached by a complete idiot and the office seems pretty committed to that idiot. There's also a bit of a window problem in the division, with only the Rangers appearing to trend down while the other six are stable or ascending.

Columbus is so hard to care about. It's not a snobby New South city like Nashville or Raleigh, but it's not an old-line Midwest/Northeast hockey town, either. It just is.

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Team NA out-shoots Team Russia 43-25, but loses 3-4. McDavid hitting a post with the 2 man advantage late in the game thanks to a 40 second final power play. Good pressure and plenty of chances- felt like Team NA was going to force OT; but Sergei Bobrovsky--Yet Another Bluejacket--didn't give up The Equalizer

North America led 1-0 after the 1st. Then Matt Murray got chased in the 2nd, giving up 4 in 5 minutes. Ducks' Gibson stopped all 6 shots he faced in relief.

NA plays Sweden Wednesday afternoon--need a win to move on to the final four.

Team USA plays Team Canada tomorrow/Tuesday night, 8/7 CDT, ESPN. Despite only stopping 14 of the 17 shots the Euros threw his way in Team USA's 0-3 loss, Quick back in goal for the Americans against Canada tomorrow night.
Win or go home (after playing the Czech Republic Thursday night) for Team USA Tuesday in the T-Dot.

This whole thing was engineered to yield USA versus Canada and it's gonna end up being Russia and Deutschlatslovslavitzereich. And then all the Blue Jackets who distinguished themselves in the tournament are going to blow out their ACLs in December or get benched by John Tortorella for not jacking off to the national anthem.

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2nd period about to start:

Chelios needs a comb.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

I always suspected Chelios was blackballed from broadcasting gigs because of the time he suggested someone should assassinate Gary Bettman to end the '94 lockout. Yeah, Chris Chelios said that once.

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Was he wrong?

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No

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WOW.

Team NA beats Sweden (already through to the Semi-Finals). North American Scum won it on a Nathan Mackinnon break away-- deke-deke-deke, back-hand winner in OT

https://twitter.com/SidneyCrosbyEgo/status/778715665804910592



"best 3 on 3 ever i've ever seen..ever" Hull on the post-game

Agree with Hull, best 3 on 3 EVER!

That was amazing, gonna be a shame if NA doesn't advance. NA vs Canada in one of the semi finals? If they suddenly decided to make that pay per view I'd be like TAKE MY $50!!!!

ESPN production has been pretty brutal aside from two saving graces....the amazing ref helmet cam and the fantastic interplay between Hull and Cheli. Love seeing those guy rip team USA apart throughout this tournament.

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Easy for them to do considering they were part of what was easily the most embarrassing Team USA performance since NHL players started representing internationally.

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Mike Modano was the original Ryan Lochte.

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as well as being part of the most successful best on best USA teams.

Nagano was ridiculous, but if I remember correctly Cheli's only involvement was that he wrote the check to cover all the damage in the hotel. I could be wrong, but I don't think he was involved in the vandalism.

I still remember Keith Tzachuk coming off the ice after they lost the last game and doing an interview where he blasted himself and the entire team.

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I didn't realize the world was above the 30th parallel?

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Team Kanaydia vs Team Warsaw Pact Mixtape in the Finals:

All games on ESPN or ESPN 2 and CBC etc

Game 1, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 8 p.m. ET
Game 2, Thursday, Sept. 29, 8 p.m. ET
Game 3, Saturday, Oct. 1 (if necessary), 7 p.m. ET


Good odds if you're willing to take Team Euro tonight. +850 to win in reg. +600 to win in reg or OT.

Jaroslav Halak: 142 saves on 150 shots through his four starts, .947 save percentage.

Cary Price: 92 saves on 97 shots, .948 save %

Bovada offering +10000 odds that regulation will end in a 0-0 tie....depending on how involved the refs get...worth throwing a ten or two at.

http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/nhl ... ckey-final

2-1 Canada after 2. Euros have outplayed Canada; a couple of early mistakes by the Euros gave Canada easy odd-man rushes for goals.

Toews has been invisible this game. except when Babcock teamed Toews with Perry and Doughty late on Canada's lone PP opportunity--and they coughed up a short-handed breakaway 1 on goalie that Price saved.

Kopitar double shifted pretty much the whole game. Most of the time, Toews was sent over the boards to match up with him. Toews shut him down the entire game and Kopitar returned the favor on Toews. Considering the rest of Canada's lineup I'd say it was a good decision to have Toews sacrifice his game to cancel out Europe's best player. Kopitar's line did get the only goal, but it didn't come when Toews' line was on the ice, it happened vs Crosby's line when Crosby got caught spectating in the defensive zone.

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the only Kanucky player stopping the Euros from scoring at will was Price.

wow, what a finish last night!

Toews with an outstanding assist setting up the shorty GWG.

Was hoping it would go 3 games, but the way it finished I'm not disappointed.


Hopefully Toews doesn't play in any preseason games for the Hawks. Just put him in a case and lock it until opening night, then break the glass and let him loose..he's ready.

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complete bs that the refs gave the the Canucks a bullshit PP that late in the 3rd--after the Canadians already had 4 PP's to 1 for the Euros. Bettman prolly got nervous about all these players and coaches being out of NHL camps into October; decided to end it last night.