Something Of A Hockey Preview

((HT: Sportsnet))

There is an amazing amount of pressure put on the home team to win a gold medal...

And the Russians will have an interesting chemistry issue to deal with. The KHL players on the squad all practiced together before the NHL players even arrived in Sochi, so there is almost two factions at play here...

The Kovalchuk/KHL faction and the Ovechkin/NHL faction and how they will interact will be an interesting subplot to the whole thing...

There are four teams (maybe five, if you include the Czechs) that will be fighting for the medal stand- USA, Canada, the Russians, and the Swedes...

The HQ believes in defense first when putting these squads together, so goaltending will keep teams in the medal race long before any other aspect of togetherness...

Thus, we look at Lundqvist and Miller over Fleury...

Hockey Central discusses...

Women's Hockey Fight, Women's Hockey Fight: Team USA vs Team Canada

Nothing like a little scrum to perk up an otherwise uninteresting Women's Olympic Hockey tuneup game. Right?

Team USA and Team Canada squared off Friday night in Grand Forks, North Dakota and the game, which was won 4-1 by the US squad, got a bit chippy.

Check out what happened late in the game as Canada desperately tried to solve US Goalie Molly Schaus who kept them in check the whole night….

12 Ejections and10 fighting majors were handed out and in case you were wondering, yeah, there's some bad blood here. The two squads had a big brawl in October and went at it as far back as 2010.

Anyway, here's your video: