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| Salt Lake City 2002 | Finland vs USA
February 15, 2002 E Center USA 6, Finland 0 |
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We arrived early to the E Center for the biggest game of our short Olympic trip - Team USA vs Team Finland. The crowd outside was buzzing - as expected for the host country, there was plenty of pumped-up American hockey fans. But as we waited to pass through security, the volume of the American crowd died down.
Then suddenly there was loud chanting and cheering. Everyone turned to see a group of Finnish supporters - all wearing red jackets, waving giant Finnish flags, and chanting loudly, "SU-O-MI! SU-O-MI! SU-O-MI!"
I took a small American flag and stood among the Finnish fans, with a scared expression on my face. My friend snapped a picture, but it didn't come out. So he tried to snap a second picture. By this point, the Finns was what I was doing and started taunting me. They started shouting (good naturedly) at me and draped me in the Finnish flag. At this point, I coudn't keep the scared expression on my face and started cracking up. That photo ended up coming out fine - it's quite a nice shot of a dopey guy in a USA Jersey being surrounded by crazed Finns.
We got inside early and headed behind the U.S. bench. The players were already out and warming up. Players looked loose and relaxed. Certainly focused, but they didn't look like they had the weight of an entire country on their shoulders.
Jeremy Roenick chatted with a woman standing in the crowd and gave her a puck. She was either a relative or a friend of his. As always, he had a big smile and was chatting away with people.
Being the huge L.A. Kings fan that I am, it was great to see Adam Deadmarsh and Aaron Miller up close. There were several other L.A. Kings fans that I saw wearing Aaron Miller and Adam Deadmarsh jerseys. L.A. King Mikko Eloranta played for Team Finland, but alas, I didn't see any Eloranta jerseys anywhere.
The surprise of the night was the goaltending. Expected starter Mike Richter wasn't dressed. The team had decided to start Mike Dunham and Tom Barrasso was the back-up. There was some murmuring in the crowd as to why Team USA would take Finland so lightly and not start their best goalie.
Then the idiot showed up. Some moron with a thick Boston accent crowded his way behind the bench and started shouting at the players. He started pestering Brian Leetch and Bill Guerin - both of whom ignored him. Then he started pestering Phil Housley - Housley made the mistake of looking up at him. The guy snapped a bunch of pictures at him with the flash on. This guy spent the rest of the time harrassing the players to look up at him so he could take a picture of them. Doofus.
At this point, I knew security would be called on this moron, so I left and went back to my seat. Sure enough, a few minutes later the area behind the Team USA bench was cleared.
The crowd noise wasn't as loud as I thought it would be for a home USA Hockey game. But I guess it had to do with one side of the arena being cordoned off for the media - and many of the best seats in the arena empty (stupid corporate sponsors). As always, the loudest part of the arena was the cheap seats.
THE GAME
The game started and things looked hairy. While Team USA outshot the Finns, the shots weren't dangerous. The Finns were getting really dangerous chances, had more control on the puck, and were just flying out there. When the period ended 0-0, we had a bad feeling about how this game would go.
The second period started and things were still 0-0. The play was much closer, but the Finns still looked like they were flying out there. Then Scott Young took a pass at the blue line, skated in past the defenseman, and ripped a high wrist shot past the goalie. The crowd went wild and the momentum of the game changed.
A few minutes later, John LeClair scored. A minute later, Keith Tkachuk had a play similar to Scott Young's. He got the pass at the blue line and skated in with a defenseman on him. Instead of going past him like Young did, Tkachuk pulled an incredible toe drag move to get the puck around the defenseman, then ripped a high wrist shot for a 3-0 lead.
Between the second and third period, there was a lot of buzz in the crowd. Huge smiles in the crowd. For lack of a better term, there was a positive happy vibe inside that arena.
The third period started and the Finns turned up the heat. They started to pepper Mike Dunham with shots - but he turned them all away. A couple guys behind the USA net started bowing to him with every save - and there was a lot of, "Who is this guy?" buzz in the crowd.
Then John LeClair scored his second and third goals - resulting in the hat trick. I wish I'd remembered to bring a hat. But plenty of other people had brought theirs - the ice was littered with hats.
The game ended in a 6-0 rout. The exuberant happy crowd left with big smiles.
After the game, we headed out to find some place to celebrate. The destination - the Applebee's down the street from the E Center.[Side note - there are a LOT of Applebee's in Utah. What the hey? Here in California, we have a couple of them. But Applebee's in Utah seem to be on every street corner.]
At the Applebee's, there was one really intoxicated fellow at the bar who saw our USA jerseys and whooped and hollared at us. He shouted, "U! S! Uh, um, er, um, uh... A! U! Um, uh, er, oh yeah- S! A!"
While our food got there, there was one other table we saw - two women and a guy with a hat pulled down way over his head. We didn't make much note of it.
Over dinner and drinks, we reflected on the great time we'd had at the Olympics and how we were going to lord this over our friends who didn't come. As we finished up, our waiter came over with some bad news. He said, "I hate to be the one to tell you this guys, but you were sitting next to Adam Deadmarsh." We looked over at the table where the two women and the guy with the hat were - they were gone. We didn't think the waiter was telling us the truth, til he showed us the Adam Deadmarsh autograph he'd gotten.
Sigh. We felt like such heels. One of our favorite players in the world was right there. If we'd known it was him, we would've paid for his meal and told him how great he is. The least we could've done. Then again, Deadmarsh probably wouldn't have wanted the attention. Especially with drunk guy still trying to figure out how to spell USA.
We left Utah the next day. We stopped in Las Vegas for the night, stayed up late to watch USA vs Russia (but stupid NBC taped delayed it til 2 am), and then headed home to SoCal the next day.
I left with the fondest memories of those six games in three days. God willing, I'll get to do an Olympic hockey trip again someday.
1ST 2ND 3RD TOTAL
--- --- --- -----
FINLAND 0 0 0 0
UNITED STATES 0 3 3 6 FINAL
GOAL SCORING:
1ST PRD: NONE
Penalties-
Antti Aalto, Fin (interference), 9:55;
Tomi Kallio, Fin (interference), 17:20;
Kimmo Timonen, Fin (cross checking), 19:47.
2ND PRD: USA - SCOTT YOUNG 1 (BRIAN ROLSTON, GARY SUTER) 9:45
USA - JOHN LECLAIR 1 (BRETT HULL) 16:16
USA - KEITH TKACHUK 1 (JEREMY ROENICK, BRIAN LEETCH) 17:45.
Penalties-
Chris Chelios, Usa (cross checking), 3:05;
Tom Poti, Usa (high sticking), 7:24;
Mike Modano, Usa (interference), 13:14;
Doug Weight, Usa (tripping), 19:17.
3RD PRD: USA - JOHN LECLAIR 2 (power play) (BRIAN LEETCH), 6:49
USA - JOHN LECLAIR 3 (BRETT HULL, DOUG WEIGHT), 11:23
USA - BILL GUERIN 1 (PHIL HOUSLEY), 14:14.
Penalties-
Janne Niinimaa, Fin (hooking), 5:43;
Mikko Eloranta, Fin (tripping), 6:00;
Keith Tkachuk, Usa (interference), 11:59.
POWER-PLAY CONVERSIONS: FIN - 0 OF 5, USA - 1 OF 5.
SHOTS ON GOAL: 1ST 2ND 3RD TOTAL
--- --- --- -----
FIN 4 8 11 23
USA 13 11 15 39
GOALIES: FIN - JANI HURME
USA - MIKE DUNHAM
OFFICIALS: REF - Mccreary
LIN - Nowak, Nansen.
ATT: 8,484
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