Men's Olympic Hockey Kicks Off Tomorrow!

Photo courtesy of Melissa Allen

The long-awaited Olympic break is finally upon us and the excitement for the puck to drop on the first Men's Hockey event tomorrow is surging in the hockey-crazy host country of Canada! The Capital's five members have arrived in Vancouver and are getting ready for their much anticipated debuts playing proudly for their respective countries. First off, Hockey Mom has a few odds and ends from the pre-break period that I'd like to touch on. Let's start with the boys' last game against St. Louis and the brutal (and late like in last week late) hit from Cam Janssen on Matt Bradley. There has been no discipliary hearing for Janssen as of yet, but with the league's stance on eliminating head hits from the game, expect one next week sometime. HM personally thinks that this is yet another opportunity for NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell to make Janssen an example of "no tolerance" for head hits here and throw the book at him. I'm thinking the first ten volumes of Encycopedia Britannica should suffice!

And despite the three losses suffered by the Caps in their final three outings going into the break, they are still in an excellent position in the standings going into the break! We'll all be wishing our Olympic athletes well (and no injuries, fellas) and the players not going to Vancouver will have some valuable time to renew and refresh as we surge on to the playoff stretch!

Now onto the Olympics! If you've been following my blog for awhile (and bless you if you have), you know my fascination with siblings in sports. Well, the rosters for several countries going for gold in 2010 are sprinkled with brothers (and sisters). As the mom of my own twins (who I hope one day will play successfully on the same line), I am especially enthralled with twins in hockey. Team USA's women's roster features the talents of the Lamoureux twins, Jocelyne and Monique. In case you missed it, Jocelyne had a lovely Ovi-esque goal in yesterday's 12-1 victory over the Chinese team.

And of course there are the wonder twins, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, who will be displaying their magical scoring powers alongside the Caps' Nicklas Backstrom for Team Sweden. Team Sweden will be one to watch as they aim to defend their gold medal from the last winter games - they are chock full of talent and may just well sneak in under the radar.

Here are some other brother acts who will be playing for their countries:

• Mikko and Saku Koivu - Finland
• Marian and Marcel Hossa - Slovakia (The Hossa brothers will join forces with former Capital Milan Jurcina)
• Andre and Sergei Kostistyn - Belarus

So HM hopes all theses brothers play nice (and hard) and we can't wait for the puck to drop for the men tomorrow! Women's hockey has already gotten underway and Team USA and Team Canada pretty much blew their competition out of the water with 12-1 and 18-0 finals in their first games. Watching the Canada/Slovakia rout, I wondered if there shouldn't be some sort of "mercy" rule as we have in youth hockey? Once the score is 10-0, they call the mercy rule and the game is over. Or at least let the clock run - doesn't exactly make for exciting hockey to watch one team get annihialated (and the Slovakian goalie crying)... just saying.