(no subject)
Well it's been awhile since I've updated this thing and I need a *break* from studying, so here I am!
First term marks were good - I ended up with a 3.5 GPA overall - if I can pull something close to that off for the second term, then I'll be easily off probation and able to focus on getting my marks up in senior years to a position where I can get into a decent graduate school after getting my BSc. Of course naturally I got sick (I get one serious sickness each term it seems). This time it was a particularly aggressive strep throat, which forced me to hand in two lab reports late. I ended up getting a B on one of them after the 10% penalty, which was a relief and I'm still waiting for the second one. I've got a midterm and a lab report/pre-lab due tomorrow, so I've got some work to do yet.
Anyway, there's one thing I've noticed that has me a little bit confused and it's about the Canadian Women's Hockey team at the olympics. For those of you who don't know, they crushed their first two opponents, beating Italy 16-0 and Russia 12-0. Their next game is tomorrow against Sweden.
The thing that confuses me is this: I've noticed a lot of people slanging Canada (and surprisingly enough this includes some people from CBC) for supposedly "running up the scores" against their opponents.
There are a few things that bug me about this.
Firstly, I think anyone who knows anything about international women's hockey knows that this sport is largely still a two-team sport. That is to say, in any tournament unless something really fucked up happens, the top spot will either be won by Canada or the United States. A few decades ago men's hockey was like that as well, except instead of the US it was the USSR. It's only relatively very recently in the grand scheme of things that the other powerhouse countries in men's hockey have caught up, and now we have a nice mix where in any given tournament you have six or seven teams contending for medals.
That's a bit off the point though. What I'm getting at is that Canada's 16-0 win over Italy, while truly a shelacking, was actually LESS than most people were expecting. When you have the best team in the world facing off against a team that is only in the tournament because they are the host nation (and have never been in A division international play EVER), you're going to have a lopsided score. With the Russians, 7 of ths 12 goals came in the first period, where, not to sugar coat things, the Russians SUCKED. They were absolutely terrible in the first period and they paid the price accordingly. What do people want the Canadians to do? Keep shooting the puck into the Russians zone and then calmly wait for the Russians to pick it up only to lose it to the Canadians in the neutral zone again? Is that even fair to either the players or the fans who have paid to see the game?
So there's that. It's not like the Canadians were deliberately throwing it in their opponents' faces, which is what "running up the score" is. Furthermore, that term implies that there's no purpose to it, which once again is dead wrong. In international play, ties in record are resolved by goal differential (i.e. goals for minus goals against) and that determines home-ice advantage in the medal rounds, which in turn determines a bunch of factors that are very strategically important, especially with two teams as evenly matched as the Americans and Canadians (the Canadians are slightly better on paper, but most of their strength lies in their depth and the base they can draw on for players). So, the number of goals scored are very, VERY important. Especially since Sweden, which in terms of talent is well behind Canada/USA, but well ahead of everyone else in the tournament, happens to be in Canada's division. Canada needed to score those goals in the first two games, and they did. People need to stop complaining about something that is so stupid that it's really a non-issue, and move on.
And that's my rant for the day.
First term marks were good - I ended up with a 3.5 GPA overall - if I can pull something close to that off for the second term, then I'll be easily off probation and able to focus on getting my marks up in senior years to a position where I can get into a decent graduate school after getting my BSc. Of course naturally I got sick (I get one serious sickness each term it seems). This time it was a particularly aggressive strep throat, which forced me to hand in two lab reports late. I ended up getting a B on one of them after the 10% penalty, which was a relief and I'm still waiting for the second one. I've got a midterm and a lab report/pre-lab due tomorrow, so I've got some work to do yet.
Anyway, there's one thing I've noticed that has me a little bit confused and it's about the Canadian Women's Hockey team at the olympics. For those of you who don't know, they crushed their first two opponents, beating Italy 16-0 and Russia 12-0. Their next game is tomorrow against Sweden.
The thing that confuses me is this: I've noticed a lot of people slanging Canada (and surprisingly enough this includes some people from CBC) for supposedly "running up the scores" against their opponents.
There are a few things that bug me about this.
Firstly, I think anyone who knows anything about international women's hockey knows that this sport is largely still a two-team sport. That is to say, in any tournament unless something really fucked up happens, the top spot will either be won by Canada or the United States. A few decades ago men's hockey was like that as well, except instead of the US it was the USSR. It's only relatively very recently in the grand scheme of things that the other powerhouse countries in men's hockey have caught up, and now we have a nice mix where in any given tournament you have six or seven teams contending for medals.
That's a bit off the point though. What I'm getting at is that Canada's 16-0 win over Italy, while truly a shelacking, was actually LESS than most people were expecting. When you have the best team in the world facing off against a team that is only in the tournament because they are the host nation (and have never been in A division international play EVER), you're going to have a lopsided score. With the Russians, 7 of ths 12 goals came in the first period, where, not to sugar coat things, the Russians SUCKED. They were absolutely terrible in the first period and they paid the price accordingly. What do people want the Canadians to do? Keep shooting the puck into the Russians zone and then calmly wait for the Russians to pick it up only to lose it to the Canadians in the neutral zone again? Is that even fair to either the players or the fans who have paid to see the game?
So there's that. It's not like the Canadians were deliberately throwing it in their opponents' faces, which is what "running up the score" is. Furthermore, that term implies that there's no purpose to it, which once again is dead wrong. In international play, ties in record are resolved by goal differential (i.e. goals for minus goals against) and that determines home-ice advantage in the medal rounds, which in turn determines a bunch of factors that are very strategically important, especially with two teams as evenly matched as the Americans and Canadians (the Canadians are slightly better on paper, but most of their strength lies in their depth and the base they can draw on for players). So, the number of goals scored are very, VERY important. Especially since Sweden, which in terms of talent is well behind Canada/USA, but well ahead of everyone else in the tournament, happens to be in Canada's division. Canada needed to score those goals in the first two games, and they did. People need to stop complaining about something that is so stupid that it's really a non-issue, and move on.
And that's my rant for the day.