Shannon Szabados Starts In Columbus

((HT: SPHL))

And it was pretty rocky...

One goal in the first and three more in the second as the Knoxville Ice Bears beat Szabados' Columbus Cottonmouths 4-3 in SPHL action Saturday night...

Szabados made 27 saves, but still had a blast...

From Kathy Gierer's piece in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:

“I’ve been here two days,” Szabados said. “It would have been nice to have had a week to get used to it. But I felt as good as I usually do.”

Szabados appreciated the warm welcome during introductions.

“It was fun,” Szabados said. “I saw a few Szabados shirts out there. It was definitely a great moment.”

Here's her introduction


Head coach Jerome Bechard was pleased with his new goalie and the Snakes now prepare for the SPHL playoffs.

Team Canada Goalie Playing For SPHL Franchise

And, no, the HQ isn't talking about Carey Price...

Shannon Szabados, it appears, is going to be spending the rest of the season as a goalie for the Columbus (GA) Cottonmouths in the SPHL- a good goalie gets a chance in the US minor leagues...

She broke the news in an interview with Sportsnet 590 The Fan's "Sportsnet Tonight" program with Jeff Sammut and George Rusic.

Catch the interview hyah...

The gold medal-winning goalie is adding the SPHL to her Western Hockey League resume and practiced with the Edmonton Oilers earlier this week.

Team USA fans would like to forget Szabados even exists after her gold-medal game performance. But the HQ will tip their hat to her as she heads south...

Here's her tour with the Oil...
((HT: The National))

Team Canada Takes Gold In Overtime

((HT: Sportsnet))

Yes, the HQ is full of dammit, dammit, dammit right now...

After hitting a post on what could have been an empty-netter that could have sealed the gold medal for Team USA...

It still smarts when the top two countries in the world when it comes to women's hockey trade blows into sudden death overtime...

And Team USA doesn't come out on top...

Daren Millard and John Shannon discuss what it means to Team Canada...
This is what Millard is referring to... ((HT: NBC/IOC))
Clever... and jingoistically unfunny...

Hard To Win When It's 8 on 5

((HT: Sportsnet))

That is the jingoistic part of the HQ speaking here...

With a ref crew that didn't call two previous penalties for "too many men" and getting in the way for the breakaway goal, the larger issue today in the Team Canada-Team USA game in Sochi was the goal that made it 2-1.

Sure, it was a goal for Hayley Wickenheiser putting her on top in the history of the event for goal scoring over Cammi Granato. But the dynamic is the issue- the puck was lost under USA goalie Jessie Vetter, a whistle sounded, the puck went in to the net...

In that order...

The play was reviewed and the blindness by all the officials- on ice and off- screwed it up for Team USA in an eventual 3-2 loss.

The new approach for the medal distribution is different than most sports- qualifiers were put in the semifinals already. And both of these teams are in the final four of the event. So, now the stars and stripes have to play a tough Finnish squad in another bracket entirely to, hopefully, get a rematch against the Canadians for the gold...

Here's analysis of Round One...

So, Now's The Time For Revenge In Ice Hockey With USA and Canada

((HT: Sportsnet))

For the sake of remembering, here's the end of the Vancouver tournament...
((HT: OBS/IOC))


So, now with all the wild cards hanging around in multiple nations, the focus on this side of the world is on a gold-medal rematch between the two... leaving the home team out of it...

Here's Dan Bylsma discussing...
And on the women's side, the HQ thinks that it will be a rematch between the Teams USA and Canada- but we know that, when the two hook up tomorrow- a lot of us will be thinking about what happened in Grand Forks a month ago... ((HT: NBCSN))
The HQ admits that we're not a fan of the accelerated seeding process since we think it takes the fun out of the round-robin...

But, as supporters of Megan Bozek, we're ready to go...

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: