USA v Canada

by Anne

Living up yonder in the Northern United States, we are in extremely close proximity to Canadia and Canadian people. If I were to leave my house right now, barring any back-ups on the bridge, I could be in Canada in about 15 minutes. 

The "Canada sucks! America sucks!" battle is a daily occurrence for me and the other residents of WNY and I'm sure any of the cities that dot the world's largest non-hostile border. It's funny to see friends in other parts of the country get all riled up about tonight's game. The hockey world likes to push Russia-Canada as a huge rivalry and it is, but I don't think anyone gets as worked up about it as Canada - USA. There aren't a whole lot of events in which the United States is near but not at the top. There are clearly several events that are dominated by other countries but usually the USA lags far back in those. There aren't many Olympic events in which the Americans sit in the middle of the pack. The USA has long been considered the 4th place lock behind (in varying order) Canada, Russia and Sweden.

I don't have a whole lot of thoughts on tonight's game other than I'm ridiculously pumped and I want to crush Canada. However, I feel as though there is no chance this will happen. 

Everyone has been all "Oh noes! Lindy Ruff! He's going to tell them where to shoot on Miller!" Yes, this is true, however, Zach Parise and Brian Rafalski are/were Marty Brodeur's teammates and Ryan Kesler is Roberto Luongo's teammate, I'd call the playing field fairly even in the "What about the GOALIE?!" argument.

I really really hope Drew Doughty and Dustin Brown end up out there on the ice against each other. Brownie hits like a freight train and Dewey has nearly mastered the art of the clean hipcheck, so it'll be interesting to see who'd get the upper hand in one of those one-on-one battles.

Also, my favorite American defenseman NOT on Team USA has been featured in an exciting video this break. Enjoy. I've missed him so. I wanted to embed the video but it wouldn't work. CURSES.

U-S-A! U-S-A!