During the round robin of this year's Olympic games in Turin, our Canadian women beat host Italy 16-0, Russia 12-0 and Sweden 8-1. We then took out Finland 6-0 in the semi-final. That's a cumulative score of 42-1 which drew a great deal of criticism from Don Cherry and others. I didn't mind Canada running up the score because I knew home ice advantage would go to the team with the greater goal differential.
When Sweden upset the USA the other day, all that went out the window. The Swedes will get last change during the gold medal game tomorrow because when we met them previously in the tournament we had the last change. Silly IIHF rules like this infuriate me. The whole point of pounding our first three opponents 36-1 was to secure home ice advantage for the final and suddenly that's not true.
First of all, that goal differential rule should be thrown out the window. It encourages 16-0 scores which reminds everyone about the talent gap in women's hockey and upsets loud, old-school pundits like Donald S. Cherry. Secondly, they should just flip a coin in the final for home ice advantage unless the two teams have met previously. If they've met previously, which is the case here, the winner of that game should be rewarded with home ice.
42-1 and a load of bad press and it was all for naught.
