In case you missed Canada's defeat of Team USA at the World Juniors, here's most of the video from the shootout that followed the overtime:
Disappointing for Team USA, but incredibly compelling hockey.
January 3rd, 2007
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Peter Mueller scoring two of the three goals in the shootout should make the Coyotes brass proud.
It’s too bad they lost the game, but at least it had to go to multiple rounds of the shootout to decide it.
Exciting, sure, but how is deciding who gets to play for gold by having the same shooter shoot against the same goalie three times a satisfying result? Put another way, if the U.S. would have won, there would be riots from Vancouver to PEI about the silliness of it all – just when you thought the shootout took the “team” out of team win, the IIHF’s allowance of one player to keep shooting in the sudden death rounds takes it one step further.
But I’m not an unreasonable man – if the NHL wanted to do something similar (no one wants to see Marik Malik in round 15 of the shootout – or do they, considering what he did with his chance?), it would make sense to let teams designate five shooters to keep rotating through. Just not the same guy again and again and again.
If you’re going to let skills competitions decide meaningful games, at least make them skills competitions that measure a team’s depth of skill in some way.
Sorry for the rant – I need my morning coffee.
Seems like the Canadians caught a break on Kane’s NG. Ref allowed Canadian to turn sideways–it could have been across the line.