Olympic Daily: On Finland-Sweden, Jukka Jalonen, and Paul Maurice?
Happy Friday, let's talk about Olympic Hockey, Finland and coaches.
That was a pretty fun way to start the day.
A cup of coffee, Finland-Sweden on the TV, and a quiet living room for myself and the dog before the kids woke up.
It felt like a typical Saturday or Sunday morning for me, although this time I was protected from being hurt by Tottenham and having to wonder if they’ll even be in the Premier League or not next season.
Finland-Sweden in men’s hockey is always can’t-miss TV for me. Even when NHLers aren’t taking part in the tournament, the Finns and Swedes tend to bring the best and worst out of each other. In fact, one of my favorite Olympic memories is “taking a long bathroom break” to sneak away from the church service my parents had taken me to to watch as much of Sweden-Finland as I could in the 2006 Olympic Gold Medal Game.
The building was also electric, which you could see on the broadcast, and would probably see even more if the IIHF and IOC weren’t such sticklers about rights control from media members.
Finland won 4-1 on Friday morning, there were 32 combined penalty minutes, and multiple scrumbles, including a nice fracas at the end of the second period. Juuse Saros had a bounce-back game for Finland, I was semi-surprise he started actually, and Joel Armia continues to remind me why he’s one of my favorite under-the-radar players to watch.
