Two gold and a silver see latest gold guy is engaged to a Canadian and good cross that one perfect human beings well mannered respectful Canadian mixed with Aussie knockabout habits and humour.
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Will the land of desert drought dust and bones never ending supply of stones beat the land of beauty and snow and mountain peaks in the medal tally by the end I doubt it but game on australia v canada agriville challengeLast edited by Landdownunder; Feb 15, 2026, 16:04.Comment
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Drama in the curling thought such a quiet sport would never have issuesComment
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Nice to see Team Holman get a win this afternoon!
Doesn’t seem her and her team are quite at the top of their game?
Speed skating has been entertaining especially when Jutta Leerdam is skating!Last edited by seldomseen; Feb 16, 2026, 17:16.Comment
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"officials monitored the game for three ends following the complaint, no violations were recorded"Originally posted by Landdownunder View Post
So the Swede comes out near the end of the game and calls the Canadian team cheaters because he's out of contention and thinks he is the greatest Olympics curler to grace the TV screen?
Canadian media plays it as a great embarrassment to Canada?
Maybe he should have throat punched the prick when he called him a cheat?
What do you think the Assie's would do if called cheaters repeatedly Mallie? Comment
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Olympic hockey demonstrates how good the NHL could be, but isn’t
Cathal Kelly
[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/article-winter-olympics-2026-hockey-nhl/[/url]
In Canada’s last round-robin hockey game on Saturday, Tom Wilson got to live his Olympic wrestling dream with a French opponent.
Afterward, Wilson’s teammates came out and said NHL things about how adding an actual beating to an Olympic beating rallied the team.
“Nothing but respect for him,” said Connor McDavid. I’m guessing he’d be feeling something less than respect for Wilson if he ever had to face him in May.
In the rest of the world, the fight was the only news out of the game.
“‘That’s hockey’: Canada’s Wilson shuns Olympic tradition and brawls during win over France” was the Guardian’s headline. It was their top Olympic story.
Shuns tradition! Brawls! Between the soccer players, the curlers and the brawlers, you’re starting to get the sense that the rest of the world is developing an impression of us, and that it’s not everything we hoped.
From a homer perspective, the men’s hockey in Milan is eliciting a different feeling – resentment. Why can’t hockey be this much fun to watch all the time?
It’s been a long time since NHLers played here, so recollections may vary. But in the interim, it feels like Olympic hockey has gotten better, and NHL hockey has gotten much worse.
Forget about Canada and U.S.A., the two best teams here by a country mile. Everyone else is also demonstrating what hockey can be if it were to be played like this all the time.
Sweden-Finland – two countries that dislike, but don’t hate each other – was a good example. It was so much crisper, so much faster than a typical NHL outing. It’s not the big ice, or not just that. It’s that these guys are: a) on aggregate, more elite technicians than the rosters of the bottom two-thirds of NHL teams; and b) trying.
There is no half-court hockey in the Olympics. It’s end to end. Nobody’s lollygagging through second-period shifts. The games aren’t even, but they are hard. So hard that a random French guy who knows he’s probably going to get his skull cracked is willing to fight Tom Wilson.
Olympic hockey with top pros makes clear to you that most nights, everyone in the NHL is going at maybe 70 per cent. Because you can see that here they’re all near a hundred, looking like someone poured Toradol in their granola. Even the Swiss and the Slovaks are magic to watch.
Hockey players glad to not wear microphones after Olympic curling spat goes live on TV ([url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/article-hockey-players-glad-to-not-wear-microphones-after-olympic-curling-spat/[/url])
Auston Matthews is a different player at the Olympics. Maybe it’s because he’s happier in the red, white and blue. That’s the popular theory. Or maybe it’s because he realizes that nobody in Toronto is going to give him a medal for scoring 70 goals. In fact, it only makes them resent him more when the Leafs lose.
He might as well drift for six months, get everybody anxious and then burst into the playoffs feeling refreshed. It’s never worked out that way, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a viable plan. Based on how the schedule is laid out, the NHL encourages it.
Do you admire Connor McDavid as an Edmonton Oiler in November? Then you must be building a shrine to him in your backyard after watching him play for Canada in February.
McDavid is always the best one out there, but in this milieu, flanked by and facing this level of talent, with his life’s goal in reach, he looks like an entirely different person, never mind player. He looks like the Connor McDavid that Connor McDavid dreamed of.
It is not the case in most other sports that their international version automatically looks better than their top professional one. It’s possible that it ends up that way, but it isn’t so normal.
You could argue that Arsenal-Manchester City will likely provide a better calibre of soccer than Italy-Portugal. All four are great teams, but the two pro clubs are all-stars of the world’s all-stars.
Same thing in basketball – judged purely on its sports aesthetics, no one would prefer to see Serbia-U.S.A. than Denver-Oklahoma City. Both games would feature some of the same players, but be played very differently.
It’s only hockey (and maybe baseball) where the international version is so obviously superior.
Obviously, the stage matters, but it’s more than that.
The Olympics reminds you how watered down NHL rosters have become. Maybe the good old days really were that much better, because there were so many fewer teams.
The NHL acts like hockey is basketball, and that the season should last just as long. Except basketball players aren’t trying to knock each other’s teeth out.
An 82-game schedule, plus two more months of lying down in front of slapshots, doesn’t encourage a take-it-easy approach. It demands it.
The big knock on the NHL’s decision to forego the Olympics for more than a decade was that they were robbing the game of its best marketing tool. If you aren’t at the Olympics, you aren’t doing your job to advertise the game.
Except this is false advertising. NHL hockey doesn’t look like what we’re seeing in Italy. Most nights during the regular season, the two things are just barely the same sport.
There is no solution to this problem, because to close the quality gap would require a fundamental reworking of the NHL’s structure.
You’d have to cut half the teams, which would mean firing half the players. Reduce the regular season to its golden age total – 60 or 70. Reduce the playoffs, too. Make it two rounds instead of four. While you’re at, enlarge the rinks. What used to fit a vicious slip of a man like Ted Lindsay can no longer fit a giant like Mikko Rantanen. Not if you want to see him at his best.
Make those changes and, fighting or no fighting, you’ll be able to export Milan hockey to Calgary and Vancouver.
It’s never happening, but it’s the Olympics. What better time is there to imagine building a better world?
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Thanks Chuck.
Made my point about Canadian MSM.Comment
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A brawl ….. lol , a couple punch’s thrown and a bit of a wrestling match .
whoever wrote that is a loser .
That French player threw a forearm to the head of a Canadian player . Wilson sent a message.
The French player acted like a buffoon on the way out mocking team Canada .
The French Olympic committee ban their player for the rest of the tournament, for good reason
that fragile opinion piece you pasted Chuck tells only 1/3 the story …… as usual
comparing Hockey to basketball is just sillyComment
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