US-Sweden, Women’s ice hockey, semifinal game.
Backstory: In women’s ice hockey, there are two elite teams, Canada and the US. In the last 45 games against teams that are not Canada, the US is 44-0-1, with the tie coming more than five years ago.
The US took a 2-0 lead, but Sweden played great defense and scored both goals on US mistakes. In each case, the US was trying to get out of their defensive zone and Sweden forced a turnover behind the net, leading to a quick pass and Maria Rooth goal. Sweden’s defense shut down the US, including a 2 minute 5-on-3.
Through the third period, both teams were a little tight, trying to score beautiful goals to win the game. Not enough speed, not enough breakaways. A little trapping.
Ten minutes of overtime didn’t decide the game, so they went to a shootout. The top US shooters couldn’t solve the Swedish goalie, and the third Sweden shooter, a 16 year old girl, beat the US goalie. Maria Rooth clinched it on the fourth round, and everyone in blue and yellow went nuts.
This game was great for the sport. Sweden was on the verge of canceling their women’s ice hockey program a few years ago, when it looked like Finland had cemented 3rd-in-world status, and the US and Canada would play in every gold medal game. More good teams make better tournaments. Here’s hoping more women around the world play ice hockey.
February 17th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
That was a painful ending to watch. What’s with the penalty shooter going wide right and trying to loop in?
February 17th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
All left-rights are from the shooter’s perspective. Sorry, goalies.
Let’s say you’re a right-handed shooter. The easiest penalty shot is to take the puck down the left side of the ice and skate diagonally across the goalie. You get one shot opportunity over the shoulder into the top left corner. Then you get the five-hole. Then you get the top right corner. And the fourth way to score is to fake a shot to the left side (making the goalie shift to the left side of the goal) then carry the puck across the net and dump it into the bottom right.
This last play is very popular, and has been used by Peter Forsberg in high-profile penalty shots.
But essentially, this approach creates a few likely outcomes.
1s. Shooter wrists high left
2s. Shooter fakes wrist-high-left, carries across, dumps low right
1g. Goalie commits to wrist-high-left
2g. Goalie refuses to commit to high left.
If the goalie waits long enough to commit, the shooter faces a dilemma (if they chose 2s) shoot at the top-left from a sub-optimal angle, or carry the puck across and try for a more difficult shot.
A few shooters today tried 2s, but the goalie waited long enough, and they had gotten too close to have any angle on a high-right shot, which is already harder because a right-handed goalie’s catching glove (unencumbered by a stick) is on that high-right corner.
All this from an average-speed right wing who would never be pulled down on a breakaway…because the defenseman would skate past me, turn around, and poke the puck away.
February 17th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
[...] Dan has a whole post over at fatmixx about this game and the signifigance of the game to Women’s Hockey. [...]