phelps

JYP win in shootout, on to Final! Jarkko Immonen and Antti Suomela scored in the shootout to end a wild hockey game in Třinec and send JYP Jyväskylä to the Champions Hockey League Final. By blowing a two-goal aggregate lead in the last 12:10 of regulation time, they didn't do it the easy way. Down by two goals to start the game after last week's loss in Jyväskylä, it was no surprise that Třinec came out strong at home, looking for the all-important first goal of the game, and it didn’t take them long to get it. After dominating the opening minutes of the game, Martin Růžička one-timed Tomáš Marcinko’s centring pass off the back crossbar to open the scoring at 2:07 and cut the aggregate difference to one. The Steelers had fired 10 shots on Jussi Olkinuora before JYP finally got a couple late on their first power play. Slowly, the momentum seemed to shift in JYP’s favour and just past the midpoint of the opening period, Juuso Vainio ripped a shot over Šimon Hrubec’s shoulder to restore the two-goal difference. JYP owned the rest of the period and Jarkko Immonen potted a rebound on a power-play rush at 17:36 to increase the lead to three with four of six periods played. As they did in the first period, Třinec dominated the early minutes of the second period, and although they didn’t manage to score on a power play chance, Michal Kovařčík did manage to force a loose puck over the goal line following a wild goalmouth scramble just seconds after it ended at 25:07. But despite another power play and several quality scoring chances in the middle frame, Třinec remained two goals down on aggregate with 20 minutes to go. With momentum on their side, Třinec went for it in the third period and carried the play by a wide margin. They just needed a break and they finally got it with just over 12 minutes to play when David Musil’s point shot deflected off a JYP skate in the slot and beat Olkinuora to bring them back within one again. With that spark, they kept their foot on the accelerator and Ondřej Kovařčík tied it with 9:04 to play, taking a pass from David Cienciala, waiting for Olkinuora to commit and sliding it in the open side. The two teams were back to even since the second period of the first leg. JYP woke up a bit after the equalizer and both teams had some decent chances over the remaining nine minutes of regulation, but with no more scoring, the game went to overtime and eventually a shootout, where it was finally decided in JYP's favour. Semifinal Result, Second Leg Ocelari Třinec - JYP Jyväskylä 4-3 (OT), Aggr. 6-7 p.s. the game's not over yet, but it's basically already sure that the Final will be played in Växjö between JYP and Växjö Lakers (SWE), since the Swedes are leading with a big margin against Liberec (CZE) with very few minutes to go...

maybe I've written too early that Sweden's roster wouldn't be so impressive... well, this is quite a good roster for a team that can't count on their NHLers... more than solid goaltending, young talent, a lot of experience (also in the NHL, even if those guys are currently not playing there) and also size doesn't lack this squad... waiting for the Finns, 4 weeks before the Games, I'd say: RUS well ahead, SWE in the hunt and CAN ready to upset the 2 big favourites...no chance for the Czechs and very little room (if any) for major surprises from the "true outsiders"...

that's very good... predictions are always "at risk" because of their own nature... but, as I wrote a few days ago, there's no way the US team can go that far...even if Zapolski plays the tournament of his life... and these Canadian players are everything but unknown to us in Europe... we regularly follow them in our domestic leagues and they all are very good athletes, used to carry the load and make the difference in their club teams...I'm sure they are good enough to give all of their opponents in South Korea a lot of troubles... surely a star-studded team like the World Cup (or the Sochi) one, would easily win the Gold Medal, but also this kind of team has quite a chance to comeback home at least with a medal... don't expect Sweden and Finland (especially the last ones) to be so impressive without all of their NHLers...even if the 3-Kronor in "normal conditions" might (should) still be the strongest rivals of RUS and CAN for the podium places...

that's quite obvious...Zapolski is one of the best goalies outside the NHL...they would be crazy not to have him as their no.1, even if I like Maxwell a lot (I've watched him playing quite a few times in the last months between CHL and Extraliga)... Leggio, as his family name may suggest, would be good for the Italian National team for the USA I don't think he's anything special... about the other rosters... I don't know what to think about the Czechs...they heavily rely on KHL players, but almost none of them are real superstars (maybe Nakladal on defense is an above the average player...and Kovar...but he's not having a good season at all in Magnitogorsk this year)... their best players look to be still the oldies like Cervenka and Erat... btw, I'm very happy for Kubalik from Ambrì Piotta... Canada...well...Canada are always a very, very dangerous team...I like the fact that they don't rely so heavily on KHL players... moreover, they're filled up with a lot of veterans with previous NHL experience and a good mix of skilled players and hard workers... Russia are still the main favourite (actually, I think they can only lose the Gold Medal because their usual internal conflicts, rather than the other teams could win with their best effort), but this Canadian team will be a true contender until the final whistle... I'm also curious to see what version of "hooligan" Lapierre we're gonna see in Korea...knowing his style of play, with IIHF officials he's always on the edge...

if I understand correctly what eusp commentator said, there were some protests because the team managers considered a pair of points of the track too demanding and/or dangerous for the girls (in particular, the small climb just at the beginning and the big curve right on the slope halfway through the course)... but frankly I don't know why yesterday they had nothing to say and suddenly today there was something wrong... update... just found this on FIS website: 'The second of this weekend’s back-to-back Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup competitions in Sweden’s Idre Fjall resort went down on Sunday but not without a hitch, as Saturday’s bluebird conditions were replaced with falling snow and heavy winds on day two of competition, forcing the cancellation of the ladies’ finals although allowing the men’s to continue, where France’s Jean Frederic Chapuis claimed a huge victory. The call to cancel the ladies’ final was a last-minute decision by the jury made as the first heat of the quarter finals was approaching the start gate. Having already postponed the start of the competition by 30 minutes in the hopes that the wind would die down, and with the earlier onset of darkness at the northerly Idre Fjall location quickly approaching, officials couldn’t push the race back any longer and made the decision to call off the ladies’ side of things to avoid a potentially dangerous situation for the athletes. With that decision, Friday’s qualification results would go into the books as the final results for the competition, giving Sweden’s own Sandra Naeslund her fifth victory of the season and making it two-for-two on the weekend at her home country venue. Swiss star Fanny Smith would take second place, while Germany’s Heidi Zacher would walk away from Idre in third.'

well, I don't think that questions about age are not appropriate (and for sure I don't see any sort of discrimination)... so, why not? for what concerns the Nordic Combined...if there's someone able to sweep one of those races that's Germany or Norway...so, I chose GER, but there's no difference if they come up with NOR in the final question (if they choose this question)... and about the "combo" medals...that's just an example... we can build the question with as many combinations as we want (however, I really think this is a well balanced matchup, since GER should win between 10 and 12 gold medals and NED could go as high as 8 or 9...and US and CAN more or less can both get around 10/11 Gold medals each, maybe USA something more and CAN something less...meanwhile the GER+NOR duo for me is a no brainer, as I think they will be the top 2 Nations in the final medal standings)... p.s. FRA+SUI+AUT (with or without ITA doesn't make much difference) against KOR+JPN is also unbalanced imho...all those 3 European Nations will get at least 6/7 Gold Medals each (I think)...and there's no way that both KOR and JPN would go in double digit...

and the new year starts with not so good results in our best discipline... Women's Individual Foil (Katowice, POL) Final Results: Gold: Inna Deriglazova (RUS) Silver: Lee Kiefer (USA) Bronze: Camilla Mancini (ITA) & Anne Sauer (GER) Semifinals: Deriglazova b. Mancini 15-6 Kiefer b. Sauer 15-7 Gold Medal Match: Deriglazova b. Kiefer 15-4 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Yesterday's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/127/results/rank Women's Team Foil (Katowice, POL) Final Results: Gold: Russia Silver: Italy Bronze: France Semifinals: Italy b. France 45-35 Russia b. Germany 42-31 Bronze Medal Match: France b. Germany 45-22 Gold Medal Match: Russia b. Italy 45-39 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/824/results/rank

just another day at the office for Arianna...not quite the same for Martina, who missed out on a great chance to win her 1st overall title... pity for the wasted opportunity by the girls' relay...let's hope nothing similar's gonna happen in Korea next month... and still depressing results from our men's side...the Nineties, what an era!...it looks like it was yesterday, but Lillehammer's glory is already 24 years behind us...

nor the US to sweep the HP events in Snowboard (even if the Asian competitors may have different ideas)... you know...those X-Games "owned by judges" events...

well, I was a bit supertitious there...actually, I think Moioli and Jacobellis are by far the 2 best SBX specialists, but they also have a long history of "Olympic epic fails"...so, as I wrote, I really think that a French sweep is possible (the other 2 girls with some potential to stop them are Gulini and maybe Samkova, even if in this season she hasn't shown her best shape yet...the rest of the field is well behind those girls and I don't think they have a shot at the podium places)...

France in women's snowboardcross (and this is more than likely...actually, there are just 3/4 girls who could avoid it)... Germany in men's Bobsleigh (mainly in 4-man, but I don't exclude the 2-man neither, if they can enter 3 sleds -I'm not 100% aware of qualifications criteria in Bobsleigh) Russia (pardon, OAR) in women's single (Figure Skating) South Korea in all 1000m and, even more, in all 1500m races in Short Track Speedskating (those last 2 being the most likely of the entire Games program)...

I don't watch rai channels even if they pay me to do it... by the way, today we are lucky..they're broadcasting the Short Track Europeans right now...tomorrow instead it's gonna be just somethinmg more usual by them...I think they will show them after midnight...

sure... and in fact I agree on the general principle you expressed (which, as @LDOG wrote, would be in place for the contest)... but I also think that it shouldn't be ignored the fact that 1 or 2 sports have so much more following than the average (and in fact @LDOG confirmed that they would take also this thing into consideration)... to me, that's perfect...they have my full support... by the way, here another couple of questions... Snowboarding (but the first one could be used also for Freestyle) will Halfpipe and Slopestyle be won by the same snowboarder (freestyler)? (question including both men and women's competition) in Snowboardcross, will both Qualification winners (m and w) fail to medal? will we have a full podium with -18 years young medallists in any of the sports disciplines? Nordic Combined will all 3 Gold medals go to the same Country? will we have a German clean sweep of the podium in 1 of the Individual events? will someone ranked outside the top 25 after the Jumping phase get a medal at the end of the day in an Individual event? will we have at least 5 teams finishing within 45 seconds behind the winners (and included the winners) in the Team Relay? Curling will Italy win 2 or more games? will at least 2 different Nations get a medal in all 3 events of the program? will we have at least 1 team (all 3 events included) winning all of their games, from first preliminary match to the final? Overall will the Germany+Netherlands duo win more Gold medals than the USA+Canada duo? will we have at least 5 Gold Medal winners being less than 18 years young on that given day?

no, not upset... but a bit disappointed, yes... you know, short track is one of my favourite winter sports and I always hope that our skaters can do well... and since I was watching the races (on the Hungarian TV ), I was surprised by that bad mistake by our girls, who, as I wrote, didn't need to make anything extravagant to keep their position and skate through to the final race... just that... p.s. however, short track is a wonderful sport...and it's difficult not to get involved when watching it (and it doesn't matter if it's the Europeans or the Olympics or even a small caliber race)...

naaa...this time they won't sweep the field in speedskating like 4 years ago...

after a day like today, I must be very optimistic... 10/12 Podium finish, with at least 3 Gold Medals

and it looked too good to be true...something stupid had to happen for us... and here we go with our girls throwing away an easy Gold in the Relay competition after falling down in the semifinals when we were comfortably on the way of tomorrow's big final... so, Germany get the benefit of our mistake and skate through to the final act together with Hungary...

naaa...I think you should put a bit more than just 3 questions about Ice Hockey in the contest... if a sport has more followers in such a big way, it can't be ignored and put on the same level of the others...I mean, not that there should be 10 times Hockey questions more than the other sports, but even if there are some more it's still OK, imho... p.s. however in the next hours I'm sure you'll get some more inputs also for the other disciplines...

Women's 1500m, Final Results Gold: Martina Valcepina (ITA) Silver: Yara Van Kerkhof (NED) Bronze: Sara Luca Bacskai (HUN) Men's 1500m, Final Results Gold: Sjinkie Knegt (NED) Silver: Semen Elistratov (RUS) Bronze: Vladislav Bykanov (ISR) Women's 500m, Final Results Gold: Martina Valcepina (ITA) Silver: Arianna Fontana (ITA) Bronze: Sofia Prosvirnova (RUS) Men's 500m, Final Results Gold: Sjinkie Knegt (NED) Silver: Victor An (RUS) Bronze: Sebastien Lepape (FRA) Provisional Overall Classification (after 2/4 events) 1st, Martina Valcepina (ITA) 68 Pts 2nd, Arianna Fontana (ITA) 29 Pts 3rd, Yara Van Kerkhof (NED) 24 Pts Provisional Overall Classification (after 2/4 events) 1st, Sjinkie Knegt (NED) 68 Pts 2nd, Semen Elistratov (RUS) 21 Pts 3rd, Victor An (RUS) 21 Pts

Italian party in Dresden... Valcepina dominating both 1500m and 500m, this last distance ahead of our Pyeongchang flagbearer Arianna Fontana... not so good the things are going for the men's team...but this is well expected...

wow! I didn't expect Pellegrino to beat Klaebo today... great job, man! and exciting final overall... p.s. but now I'm a bit worried, as the French guys look pretty good (and pretty dangerous) for the team sprint competition looking at Pyeongchang... I thought it was a NOR vs ITA question, but those Frenchmen make me think about something different, possibly...

no, not at all (at least for what's up to me)... it's the Games for those Countries with enough willingness of developing sports practiced on snow and/or ice...nothing more, nothing less, nothing different... and, meanwhile I perfectly know the fact that snow sports are not realistic in most Countries of the Southern Emisphere, frankly Ice sports are not just for those Nations with long and cold Winter, they can be played at any latitude (and infrastructure costs for all of them -except for long track speedskating- are not so much more expensive than running a basketball arena or a rugby stadium, just to name a couple)... moreover, and it's just my opinion (which isn't necessarily to be the most popular and/or a "truth"), I still think that words and ideas mean something according to how they're written...if it's the "Winter (sports) Games", it doesn't make any sense to fill the schedule with sports almost everywhere associated to the Summer season/Summer sports "family"...

and finally the unexpected happened... our teenagers flying to Korea... what can we say? at least we can say that Armin Zoeggeler is not afraid to take not so popular decisions, also as a technical director of our team... but, to be honest, I don't like the fact that they left Oberstolz/Gruber out of the team from now on...considering their career, they deserved at least to end their season with the team...

men only or also the girls counting? another couple of question for Ice Hockey... will the men's tournament Gold Medal winners win all their single games from 1st to the final in the 60-min regulation time? will the men's tournament top scorer (goals + assists) come from a team not being one of the so-called "big six" (CAN, USA, SWE, FIN, RUS, CZE)? will the women's tournament Gold Medal game be played by at least 1 European team? will Korea's teams (both men and women, it doesn't make any difference) lose at least 1 game by 10 or more goals deficit? Snowboarding... will both Snowboardcross events (m+f) be won by European athletes? will at least 1 freestyler (meaning Halfpipe and/or Slopestyle specialist, both genders included) who won Gold in Sochi 2014 repeat him/herself in Pyeongchang? will Shaun White win another (undeserved) Gold Medal in the men's Halfpipe? Overall will Italy win exactly 2 Gold Medals? will we see at least 1 new Country (for the Winter Olympics only, of course) among the Gold Medal winners? will there be at least 5 athletes (all sports, all genders, relays and team events included) winning 3 or more Gold Medals? will Kim Un Jong and/or Donald Trump show up at the Opening Ceremony?

well, actually 99% of "big names" were there (unfortunately I couldn't watch the race, but I read the detailed final results on the FIS website)... it's just that many of them didn't make it through to the top 16... results are not so weird...it was parallel slalom, not PGS...so most specialists are different, especially this season, where we only have PGS at the Olympics (having therefore the top PGS specialists left aside for a while the PSL specific workout)... moreover, PSL is always so close that's difficult to predict the outcome...sometimes it's just a question of luck in the qualification round... for sure PGS has a lot more established "elite", so to say, who are always in the top part of the final standings than PSL...