They probably will but if most rosters are filled with professional players then it's not trained pros beating up on amateurs. Some teams, like Slovakia and stuff, are screwed but even the amateurs from Canada, USA, Sweden, Russia, Finland, etc. would crush those guys anyway so it's kind of a moot point.
It just strikes me that the Olympics don't mean anything any more. They used to be about the amateur athlete and the Olympic Ideal of competition and comradery. The motto adopted by the founder of the modern Olympic games Pierre de Coubertin was "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!" This led to small countries all over the world sending people to compete in the games with no expectation that they would win and the only pressure on them being to do their best and compete. The games were about a gathering of the nations in friendly competition once every four years in a world that was otherwise wracked by tension and disharmony. Now we have teams of professional athletes, backed by corporate sponsors, descending on the Olympics with a take no prisoners attitude determined to win at all costs. We have people suspended and expelled every year for doping and other infractions designed to wring that last .04 out of their performance so they can win and reap the benefits of corporate largesse afterwards. This is not all the fault of the western world. The Soviets effectively professionalized many of the competitions when they sent young and middle-aged athletes in the beginning and middle of long lucrative athletic careers subsidized by the state to the games in the 60's and 70's. The Miracle on Ice in 1980 was a miracle because the US sent an amateur team to the games and they beat at least two professional crews in the Soviet Union and Finland. That's what made it great. That's what made it an Olympic moment worth remembering and a source of great national pride in the US. Watching the Dream Team play in 1992 turned my stomach. It was like watching high schoolers invade a middle school playground and start tipping kids over like cows. The Olympics wasn't meant to be about dollars and commercialism and win at all costs. It has no value in that context. We might as well just call it the World Championships and televise that instead. We won't do that because far fewer people would watch but it would be a much more honest description of the event. When you let economics over-run social values you deserve to have a society that values nothing but economics. That's what we've done with the Olympics.
I don't buy any of that little guy fun to compete purety of the effort bullshit. Olympics matter more than ever because it's the very best in the world competing to perform better than anyone else. The Miracle on Ice is definitely one of the most amazing feats ever but for that one victory there was a dozen other beatdowns from the Russians because their pros were actually KGB slaves who did as they weren't allowed to make money playing. I like seeing the best compete, and I want to see the best compete. Sure I like the little guy takes on the world and wins story line, but 99% of the time he just gets punched in the face.
I see where you are coming from but I kind of disagree. People want to see the best athletes possible, they love to see a new world record being made. For that to happen the athletes need to spend a lot of time and money in training and competing at all of the other tournaments and whatnot between this or that Olympic games. You can definitely argue there is a huge advantage as far as have vs have-not countries and that is unfortunate but in a lot of cases if you are speaking purely amateur terms the have vs have-nots will probably have advantages anyway as their training facilities, diets, health care, etc. is likely all better even if they are only able to train on evening and weekends if the other person is only able to train on evening and weekends as well but with inferior conditions it's kind of the same thing. The Dream Team was just silly but a lot of that just had to do with basketball being primarily an American sport. My background is Irish and they have two sports that are essentially unique to Ireland: Gaelic football (kind of like rugby and soccer combined) and hurling (kind of like field hockey but more violent). If they introduced either of those to the Olympics Ireland would curb stomp everyone because nobody else really plays those sports to the same degree. Women's hockey is essentially a two team sport between USA and Canada.
1992 dream team was painful to watch, I agree. But it did SO much for the sport of basketball. It's a world game now. Everyone wants to see the Michael Jordan's of the world compete - even if they are getting destroyed by them. in 1992 we could've sent our amateurs and they still would've won. But I know basketball wouldn't be as big globally as it is now. We might not have the Dirk Nowitzki's, Tony Parker's, Yao Ming's, etc. of the world. That was a defining moment and as it turned out, it was a great decision to allow the pros. Hockey isn't even relevant to this discussion, because the talent is plentiful in numerous countries. Hell the KHL is almost on par with the NHL. It's very interesting and relevant to allow countries to play their best players in hockey because it's something we never even get to see and it's quite competitive.
Not to mention their doping neighbors, East Germany. Spoiler: today's scores hidden below (click & drag to view scores) Men's: Sweden - 4; Czech Rep. - 2 Switzerland - 1; Latvia - 0 Women's: Canada - 3; USA - 2
Easy win today against Slovakia. The United States looked like the best team in the tournament through one game for each team. Lets see if they can continue it.
Men's hockey is more competitive than women's, with like five or six good countries (only two for the women), but it's still pretty bad because there aren't enough decent teams to fill all the slots. Every Olympics you have a few teams that aren't close to being talented enough to compete. Whether it's Germany, Austria, Norway, Latvia, Belarus... The games the bad teams play end up being a joke. Oh, and Zetterberg reinjured his back and will miss the rest of the Olympics. Sweden now has to play a man down the rest of the way because rosters lock when the first game is played.
If the USA can shut down Ovi, Geno, Kovy and Datsyuk, I think the USA will win. Shut down Russia's top two offensive lines, and their lack of depth starts to show. Bylsma seems to be pairing McDonagh with Suter to overload the top pairing. I wouldn't be surprised if they play 30+ minutes tomorrow. The aim will surely be for them to shut down Ovi, Geno and Semin.
Just saying that I don't think Russia has much depth at forward after those first two lines. The USA can get scoring from the 3rd and 4th lines, I don't think Russia can. Russia's defense is also a big weakness. To win the tournament they are going to need a huge tournament from their top two lines and good goaltending.
Tight game so far. US will have 1:24 left on a power play to start the second. They should have had a power play just before this one but Ovechkin got away with one.
