Me Love You Luongo Time!

It is his dressing room, his rink and now, his net.

Roberto Luongo will get the start for Canada Tuesday in their sudden-death elimination game against Germany and from here on, signalling what might well be the passing of the Olympic goaltending torch.

Canadian coach Mike Babock made the decision go with Luongo over 37-year-old Martin Brodeur, who had an uneven performance in a 5-3 loss to the USA Sunday in what is likely his last Olympic Games.

“We’re in the winning business,” said Babcock. “To win at any level, you need big saves, momentum-changing saves. We’re looking for Lou to do that for us.”

Babcock said the Team Canada brain trust had come into the tournament open to the idea of making a goaltending switch. You know it’s a decision they wished they hadn’t had to make, but there is no room now for loyalty, for second chances, no time.

“We felt we needed a change and now we’re making it,” he said.

So now Luongo gets to play in his home rink in front of the fans that cheer for him as a Vancouver Canuck and will cheer even more loudly as a member of Team Canada.

“My excitement level is really high right now,” said Luongo. “Possibly the highest it’s ever been.

“I’ve got a lot of experience at the international level. I know what to expect. I know it won’t be easy. The Germans are a good team and they could surprise us. I’m going to put my best game on the ice and, as a team, we’re going to execute.”

The Canadians looked at the goaltending performance of USA’s Ryan Miller Sunday, his butterfly covering much of the net and stopping shots through traffic. Luongo is a big body with a similar style and, like Babcock said, “things hit you.”

Babcock said he didn’t think Brodeur “was shocked,” upon hearing of the change.

“He’s a pro, he’s been through it. He’s won championships. He understands it’s about the team and not the individual and that’s the case now,” said the coach.

Babcock shuffled wingers with centre Sidney Crosby again, putting Eric Staal on the left and Jarome Iginla on the right.

Team Canada executive director Steve Yzerman said his team is not feeling overwhelmed or shocked to be in this position.

“You just can’t go out expecting to go undefeated and win the gold medal in every tournament,” he said. “The country has to understand you’re going to face adversity. We’re not sitting here in total shock saying, ‘how could we be in this situation?’

“The only thing that’s happened is the puck hasn’t gone in the net the last two games. These are good people who want to do well and they want to make Canada proud. They’re trying hard.”

 

SOURCE: http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Olympics/2010Vancouver/

 

Dancing on Solid Gold

There are figure-skating lifers who never thought they’d see the day.

An ice dance gold medal for Canada — heck, anywhere from North America, for that matter — at the Olympics.

But when they dance on ice, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir transcend border wars and old-time judging blocs.

Together on skates, they are brash, bold, beautiful — and now, golden.

Monday night, they blew the roof off medal-starved Pacific Coliseum with a season-high 110.42 points and 221.57 overall. Until this point, the rink had produced one Canadian silver in women’s short track.

And they did it in a way that has been, so far, so un-Canadian.

They grabbed the lead early with their original dance. Then, they never let go, answering American training mates Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s 107.19-point and 215.74 total challenge — and raising the bar even higher.

There was no disastrous fall or crash. No fifth-place finish like so many other Canadian athletes at these Vancouver Games.

They simply turned loose their signature Goose lift, this time Golden, and skated their free dance to Mahler’s Fifth Symphony like the music was written for them (instead of arranged that way by musician Ryner Stoetzer).

They fended off training mates and best buddies in Canton, Mich. — Americans Davis and White — and knocked off controversial Russian world champions Oksana Domnina and Max Shabalin, who fell too far behind the Canadians despite toning down their aboriginal original dance costumes, which had caused such a flap.

The Russians, the Soviets before them, French and Italians — other than Torvill and Dean’s days in the sun — had owned this discipline with an iron fist.

Not anymore.

Now, it belongs to Moir, a small-town boy from a figure skating family in Ilderton, Ont., and Virtue, the big-city girl from London, Ont., another athlete from a strong sports-minded clan. Moir’s mom Alma thought they’d make a good match.

He was nine. She was seven.

They were too shy to speak to each other at first. Boisterous Moir has clearly recovered.

At first, they were the cute kids, the crowd favourites, so small that Virtue could lift Moir during performances.

There were the sleepy-eyed, often snowy, early-morning commutes to Waterloo to train with Paul MacIntosh.

When the travel became too inconvenient, they left their families and switched high schools to be closer to the rink.

And from there, they landed in Canton to train under Russians Marina Zoueva, former coach of two-time Olympic pairs Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, and Igor Shpilband, who learned ice dance from the late Liudmila Pakhomova, the discipline’s first Olympic champ in 1976 with partner Alex Gorshkov.

It’s a victory for finding a best friend, the perfect business partner, early on in life.

“You see a lot of partner-switching in Canadian and U.S. pairs and ice dance,” Skate Canada team leader Mike Slipchuk said, “but there’s something to be said for two great skaters who are with each other from a very young age and they stick together and find a way to make it work.

“They learn each other’s nuances. They develop chemistry over time. Sometimes, it can happen quickly but not all the time. You look at the top couples in the world right now and most of them have been together at least 10 years.”

It was a victory for Skate Canada, which kept its streak of eight straight Games with a medal alive.

A victory for the new scoring system, which is allowing younger teams to break through.

These are not a normal Olympics for figure skating.

An ancient Chinese pair — Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao — came out of retirement to win their nation’s first figure skating gold.

An American man without a quad jump beat the Russian defending Olympic champ who has — and landed — his four-revolution specials.

And now this.

They performed their original dance — the Spanish Flamenco — about as perfectly as two people can.

“We’ve seen where the bar has been placed for that now,” Slipchuk said.

It is the gold standard.

Made in Canada.

 

SOURCE: http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Olympics/2010Vancouver/

 

Can't A Da?

The path to the gold-medal game for Canada's men's Olympic hockey team is suddenly littered with obstacles.

Next up: Germany on Tuesday in a qualification-round game, a victory needed just to qualify for the quarter-finals.

After that: A probable match-up with formidable Russia, the team that eliminated them from medal contention in the quarter-finals of the 2006 Olympics in Turin and appears to be getting better every game.

Canada lost its first game of the men's tournament Sunday, but it came at a critical time. The Vancouver Canucks' Ryan Kesler, normally a home-town hero in these parts, sealed a 5-3 victory for the United States by scoring an empty-net goal with 45 seconds remaining. Kesler's goal put an end to a furious last-gasp push by the Canadian team for the tying goal - and put a punctuation mark on an entertaining, but ultimately frustrating loss in a wild, giddy and tense arena, Canada Hockey Place.

In the glass-half-full version of events, Canada did many things well. They swarmed the net around U.S. goaltender Ryan Miller, who held a decisive edge over his Canadian counterpart, Martin Brodeur. They held their own in the speed department against an American team that had been trumpeting its edge there.

Physically, they punished the U.S. team, with Rick Nash leading the way in dishing out major open-ice hits.

The only problem was that their work in the face-off circle wasn't good - the Americans were better by a two-to-one margin in the first two periods; and the goals - so hard to come by four years ago in Turin - seem to be a struggle again.

That 19-6 edge in first-period shots for Canada was indicative of the play, but as all the players know, engineering a scoring chance is one thing, finishing them off is something else again.

Against the Americans, Canada managed three goals - by Eric Staal, on a tip-in; by Dany Heatley, on a jam from the side of the net; and then a final tally by Sidney Crosby with just 3:09 to go to draw the Canadians within a goal and provide them with a little hope.

On their next shift, Crosby's line absolutely hemmed the Americans in the zone and did everything but punch in the tying goal. But in the same way Jonas Hiller had a magical outing for the Swiss a couple of nights ago, it was Miller's time yesterday.

He stopped 42 out of 45 shots that he faced, and held the team in there at different moments when the ice seemed tilted Canada's way.

Even the U.S. coach Ron Wilson acknowledged afterwards how well his goaltender played - and much of a difference he made to the outcome.

"In fairness, Canada out-chanced us two-to-one for most of the game and our goalie played excellent," said Wilson. "We've still got a long ways to go here. There are some great teams out there. Personally, I think Canada is the best team - and Russia is right behind them with all the skill they have up front."

If that's correct and if Canada can avoid a stumble against the Germans, they may get a chance to test out Wilson's hypothesis.

Miller was gracious in the aftermath of his exceptional performance. Asked about winning the goaltending battle, he answered: "I'm just trying to build my resume. Marty's the best."

But Marty might be on the bench for Tuesday's game. Mike Babcock, the Canadian coach, said he wouldn't make a decision on his starter in goal until he reviewed the tape of yesterday's loss.

"We've chosen a longer route to where we want to go," said Babcock. "I thought we played real well at times. I thought Miller was excellent for them. In the end, we didn't have enough to get it done."

Brian Rafalski, who plays for Babcock in the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings, was the dominant offensive player in the game. In addition to scoring twice, Rafalski set up the eventual game winner, a deflection by former New Jersey Devils' teammate Jamie Langenbrunner that skipped past Brodeur.

It was the first power-play goal surrendered by Canada in the tournament and it came at the end of a seven-minute sequence in which Eric Staal, Crosby and Cory Perry took consecutive penalties. Eventually, the slip in their discipline cost them.

Crosby had a curious night of it. He finished the game minus-3, but had some great moments along the way.

"It is probably not what we wanted coming in," said Crosby, of having to play an extra game in the qualifying round, "but that's where we are. When you get to this point in the tournament, it's not going to be easy. The fact that we have to play an extra game isn't a terrible thing. We'll be ready for it."

With the victory, the U.S. clinched top spot in Group A with a 3-0-0 record and pending the outcome of the Sweden-Finland game, will either be seeded No. 1 or 2 for the playoff round.

"Emotionally, we need to make sure we don't get too high," said Miller. "We want to keep battling, keep playing, and there's going to be some tough teams ahead. We might even have these guys again."

A rematch between Canada and the U.S. would not happen until the semi-finals at the earliest. It was a litany repeated in every corner of the mixed zone and by both coaches over and over. From here on in, every game is an elimination game; the margin of error has disappeared.

"Just like every team in the tournament, we're playing for survival," said Babcock. "We understand what we're up against."

 

SOURCE: http://www.ctvolympics.ca/