For 128 minutes and 11 seconds of Olympic hockey action, Team Canada was held scoreless. Then Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis and Chris Pronger found the net to put us up 3-0 early and we held on for the 3-2 victory.

From what I understand, Martin Brodeur played amazingly well making 31 stops. Our quarter-final game is tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. against either Slovakia, Russia or Sweden. It's must-win time, baby.

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Team Canada has scored a goal! In fact, they've scored three in the first period and lead the Czech Republic 3-0 in the first intermission.

I was starting to fear we'd never score again. When Brad Richards scored at the 7:37 mark you may have heard a massive and collective sigh of relief from approximately 32,805,041 concerned souls.

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Canada has earned its fourteenth medal at the Turin Olympic games.

Our women's hockey team has won gold with a 4-1 victory over Sweden this afternoon.

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The good news: I got to watch our Canadian hockey team play two games this weekend. The bad news: I watched our team get shut out twice and fall to 2-2.

The loss to Switzerland shocked me while this loss to Finland merely suprised me. Unlike years past, there are few weak goaltenders at this level. You can no longer depend on accumulating goals due to goaltender error. You have to make the most of your opportunities and finish plays when attacking. Today we fell behind early and couldn't recover.

The fortunate thing is, Team Canada is still guaranteed a spot in the Olympic quarter-finals, even if we lose to the Czech Republic on Tuesday. Strange but true. If we can somehow turn this around, we can all look back at this lost weekend and laugh.

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Something is definitely wrong with our mens Olympic hockey team. How can a team of this calibre fail to create any semblance of offense?

It's 2-0 for Finland after one and that score is flattering to us. I don't recall seeing any crisp passes, no odd man rushes and almost no decent shots. Most of the play took place in our own end with Roberto Luongo coming up big.

Methinks this team isn't as good as we thought it was. On the bright side, a total collapse in Turin betters our chances of giving Pat Quinn the heave-ho. It's always tough to fire a national hero, but firing a goat is easy.

For the second day in a row I'm hoping for a come back and fairly certain I won't see one. 40 minutes to play. C'mon guys, play our game!

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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.

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I don't know what to say...

In 1924, we beat the Swiss 33-0 in the Olympics. This, my friends, is a long way from 1924. Today, we hit a hot goaltender Martin Gerber who stood on his head and made 49 saves on 49 shots from Team Canada. What should have been a fairly easy win became a most difficult game to watch as our guys failed to deliver and one of our former guys, Paul DiPietro, potted two for the wrong team. As tough as this was to digest, we can all breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn't an elimination game. We've had our taste of defeat, let's hope we heed this dire warning and take out our frustrations on Finland tomorrow afternoon.

Where did I go in disgust after watching our boys get humiliated by the Swiss? Swiss Chalet, naturally. The only way to eliminate a bad Swiss taste in your mouth is to supplant it with a good one.

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After one period, we're actually losing to Switzerland. Former St. John's Maple Leaf Paul di Pietro, who I just assumed was as Canadian as maple syrup and bagged milk, scored on Martin Brodeur while Martin Gerber has been stoning us at the other end.

I'm not sounding any alarm bells yet, but I was hoping this one would be a little easier. How will we fare against Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic and USA if we're tooth and nail to beat the Swiss?

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I sure wish I could watch these games. Canada is 2-0 with two decisive wins and I've been unable to watch or listen to a second of live action.

Five different players scored for Canada as we outshot Germany 40-12. Tomorrow is a day off before returning on Saturday to take on the Swiss, who somehow managed to defeat the Czech Republic today.

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The Italian hockey team should be proud. They made a game of it for over a period, even tying the game early in the second period before the World's greatest hockey team took over. Jarome Iginla led the way with two goals as we outshot Italy 50-20.

Of course, it's worth noting both goals by Italy were actually scored by Canadians. Nine members of team Italy were born and raised in Canada.

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