Goaltender Zuzana Tomcikova got off to a great start against defending champion Canada Saturday with an array of acrobatic saves in the first minute of her country's Olympic debut. Unfortunately, the Slovakians had to play 59 more minutes before the heavily pro-Canadian crowd at Canada Hockey Place.... And Tomcikova, a sophomore at Bemidji State in Minnesota, wasn't playing badly. As bad as this might get--and Canada had every incentive to keep pushing, because goal differential is a tiebreaker in determining placement if two teams are equal in points--it's still not as bad as the rout Slovakia inflicted on Bulgaria in an Olympic qualifying game in September, 2008. The score of that one was Slovakia 82, Bulgaria 0.
Being in the mood for a quiet, uneventful Saturday, I spent a good part of it watching the opening round of the Olympic women's hockey tournament (hey, I'm from northern Minnesota; it's in my DNA). I watched Sweden shut out Switzerland 3-0 in a reasonably competitive and entertaining game (and, really...could ANYTHING involving Swedish women NOT be entertaining?). Later in the day, I watched Canada demolish Slovakia 18-0 in a game that wasn't nearly as close as the score indicated. After watching that train wreck, I'll say without reservation that my new hero is Slovakian goalie Zuzana Tomcikova, a 21-year-old stalwart who was single-handedly responsible for the Canadians not hanging 45 or 50 goals on Team Slovakia. This could have been a whole lot worse.
The Canadians were crisper, more disciplined, faster, stronger, and far more skilled than the Slovakians, who played hard but just couldn't skate with Team Canada. I spent most of the game trying to figure out how Slovakia hung 82 goals on Bulgaria in an Olympic qualifying tournament. Were the Bulgarians wearing skates? Good Lord, y'all; if Slovakia scored 82 goals against Bulgaria, what would Team Canada have done? Oh, the humanity....
Team USA starts their Olympics against China today. Tuesday at noon, the REAL fun begins- the men's tournament- and I'll be thanking the gods for the gift of DVR. ;-)
