U.S. women know the score
They will have to get past Finland and its tough goalie to reach the gold-medal game, likely against Canada.
Don’t tell anyone, but here’s the revolutionary strategy the U.S. women’s hockey team has come up with in its quest to defeat Finland in the Olympic tournament semifinals on Monday and advance to the gold medal game.
“Score more goals than the other team,” forward Hilary Knight said Sunday. “It hasn’t changed.”
Getting the puck past Finland’s goaltender, University of Minnesota-trained Noora Raty, is never easy. When the teams met in the first round, the U.S. had to rally from a first-period 1-0 deficit and outshot Finland 42-24 but didn’t clinch its 3-1 victory until Dani Cameranesi scored into an empty net with 13 seconds left in the third period. That was one of two victories the U.S. earned in its three preliminaryround games; it also lost to Canada, 2-1.
Canada will face Olympic Athletes from Russia in the other semifinal Monday night. The semifinal winners will play for gold on Thursday. The U.S. won the first women’s hockey tournament in 1998 but hasn’t won since then and has lost to Canada in the last two goldmedal finals.
The U.S. women had their first practice on Sunday at Gangneung Hockey Centre and welcomed a chance to get accustomed to the boards and the ice. They focused on driving to the net, with an emphasis on creating chances for def lections and rebounds. They’ve scored nine goals overall, with Jocelyne LamoureuxDavidson and Kendall Coyne sharing the team lead with two each. Finland, which had one win and two losses in the first round, is led by Riikka Valila, a 44year-old mother of three who scored twice in her team’s 7-2 rout of Sweden in the quarterfinals and has four goals overall.
“We haven’t been finishing, but I think it would be more frustrating if those opportunities weren’t there,” Knight said. “So just got to put the puck in the back of the net, and that’s what we’re going to try and do.
Coach Robb Stauber has emphasized getting the puck to the net — and then into the net — during the last three or four practices. “Everything in tight, where the game’s won and lost,” he said. “It’s not too often you’re going to score from the point. If you get it through, you’re going to most likely score on a deflection or a redirect and some loose change. So most of those goals are going to come net-front.” He estimated 80 percent
the team’s scoring of chances have come within a 15-foot radius of the net. “We’ve hardly had any real clear looks, you know? That’s not a surprise, though — we’re not surprised by that,” he said. “We’ve spent the better parts of the practices doing exactly what we think is going to happen in the game. Seems like a decent plan, now we’ve got to execute and get the puck across the goal line.”
Vonn on Twitter
The backlash started minutes after Lindsey Vonn skidded to a stop past the finish line at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre on Saturday and mouthed “I tried.”
The most successful women’s alpine skier in history tied for sixth in the super-G at the Pyeongchang Olympics after a mistake during a turn late in her run.
Posts assailing Vonn and celebrating the unexpected result quickly flooded Twitter, most of them tied to comments she made about President Trump last year.
Many of the tweets were profane, threatening or both. ”
What prompted such a vicious, gleeful response? During an interview with CNN in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in December, Vonn was asked how she would feel representing the U.S. under Trump’s leadership.
“I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the president,” Vonn answered. “I take the Olympics very seriously and what they mean and what they represent, what walking under our flag means in the opening ceremony.”
Vonn seemed to take the social media storm in stride. After all, she waited eight years and fought through a series of injuries to return to the Olympics. And her best event, the downhill, awaits Wednesday.
Shiffrin update
Less than 24 hours after Mikaela Shiffrin’s unexpected fourth-place finish in the slalom, the U.S. alpine skiing star grappled with the disappointment in a 270-word post on Instagram.
“I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my head, and I don’t think I could have done it differently even if I got a second chance,” Shiffrin wrote Saturday. “So I wouldn’t take back my emotions or excitement after the (giant slalom) in order to have better shot at a (slalom) medal too. You know, it’s not necessarily the medalists who get the most out of the Olympics. It’s those who are willing to strip down to nothing and [bare] their soul for their love of the game. That is so much greater than Gold, Silver, or Bronze.”