The opening ceremonies are over, the Olympic flame has made it to its dual cauldrons in BC Place and downtown Vancouver and the competition is now underway.A certain Canadian and I have been engaged in trash talking for several months over our respective world number one and two ranked women's hockey teams. When the opening ceremonies were over she wasted little time reminding me we were on Canadian soil and chanting 'feel the thunder', the Canadian Olympic slogan for these games.
The two time defending gold medallists opened Group A preliminary play against first timers Slovakia. The Canadians raced out to a 7-0 first period lead and never looked back in their record setting 18-0 blowout.
The previous record was a 2006 16-0 Canadian romp over Italy
But am I feeling the thunder? Nope.
If Team Canada rings up double digit goals to Sweden, the defending Torino silver medalists, then that's a cause for concern. The Swedes are no women's hockey slouches. They upset Team USA during the 2006 Olympic semis in Torino enroute to the silver medal and won their opening Group A game against Switzerland 3-0.
Reminder to Renee and my other Canadian readers, they are in your group. Sweden wants to take a chunk out of both our squads and think they can.
The back to back world champions and number one ranked Team USA women make their Vancouver hockey debut versus China in Group A play. Interesting note about Team USA is they are coached by Mark Johnson, who was a member of the 1980 Lake Placid 'Miracle on Ice' gold medal squad.
There are also several members of this team that remember the less than satisfying results in Salt Lake and Torino and want some redemption.
But the pressure is on Canada to defend their home turf and threepeat as Olympic champs.
So yeah, a lot of hockey has to be played before we get to the women's Olympic hockey final on February 25.
And as any sports fan can tell you, anything can happen when you play the games.
