So, I had this blog post all worked out ahead of time. A nice little gimmicky "Winners and Losers" column that I had pretty much written in my head over the weekend, pending the results of the fantastic Gold Medal Game. Then I go to write it and what do I see: Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports doing the same gimmick. For F^&k's sake.

Wait... did he do this for the Olympics, or hockey players at the Olympics? Hmm just the Olympics themselves? Well I guess I can go ahead and wirte about the Hockey Winners and Losers can't I? So I'm doing it. so here's your Hockey Winners and Losers of the Olympics.

Loser: Russia
No real way to sugar coat this one for the Ruskies. They looked awful. And not just against Canada. They beat exactly one good team in the tournament: The Czech Republic. FYI: The Czechs were the second most underwhelming team of the tourney. Losses to Slovakia and the debacle against Canada must have officials scratching their head.

More after the jump

Winner: The NHL(Part 1)
The NHL stars shown brightly this tournament, and NBC even decided to air a few of their games eventually.  Besides now having Ryan Miller and Zach Parise to bank on, they even got Sidney Crosby scoring the OT Gold Medal winner. Hell if Betteman were involved there would be cries of conspiracy from everywhere.

Loser: Gary Betteman
And doesn't that make everyone a winner? Seriously how in the world can Betteman even possibly justify trying to keep NHL players out of the Olympics in 2014? That 2 weeks of free advertising on a television show  more popular that American Idol is somehow bad for the league because... why? Between the positive energy of this tournament, and the Russians desperately wanting to atone for this debacle, the only reasonable way he can push for not using NHLers as Olympians is as a bargaining chip to be traded away. If he has any real intentions of not letting NHLers play he's an idiot, which is what everyone fears.

Of course Russ McKeon makes the argument anyways, and just look at how absurd it is. (Hat tip to cfCollision for the heads up on the article) He goes on for 7 paragraphs about how great this tournament was, and then finally gets to his first argument; that there could never be a once-in-a-lifetime upset like the Miracle on Ice. Of course even if we used amateurs, there's no communist countries using defacto professionals and the political tension of the cold war has long sense passed, so a Miracle on Ice couldn't be replicated for any number of reasons, the Amateurs aspect is about 15th on that list. Besides, if a team like Germany, Belarus or Latvia win the gold one year, you could still have that miracle, just not for the US.

McKeon also says this:

The NHL product has suffered, and will suffer more this season because it accommodated a long break to shut down its business in the middle of the season. The regular-season schedule has been compacted on both ends of the break, and that’s led to more injuries and less aesthetic pleasure when watching on many nights.

This is one of those statements that people keep repeating so much that everyone just believes it's a fact, when in reality this is an unsubstantiated opinion. How has the play suffered at all? In fact this year has been one of the best seasons of NHL hockey I can remember. There's a 5-way dogfight out west for the final playoff spot. Washington had a 300 game winning streak. The Coyotes and Avalanche have had rebound years that have been exciting. And the rookie class is among the best rookie classes in a long time, other than the year Ovechkin and Crosby came into the league, which was the equivalent of 2 rookie classes because of the lockout.  I also seriously doubt there's been more injuries this season than last season, or the season previous to that.

The Argument against using NHLers in the Olympics is ludicrous.

Winners: The NHL (Part 2)
Mike Babcock and Ron Wilson were 9-0 against every coach who didn't coach in the NHL. And they severely out-coached all of them, except maybe Slovakia. In which case Babcock only mildly out-coached the Slovak coach. Much is made of the talent disparity between the NHL and other leagues, but the coaching disparity is even greater, and that was out there for the entire world to see.

Losers: The KHL
KHL President Medvedev had the funniest line of the entire Olympics after Russia's loss to Canada, when he said "Maybe we didn't use enough KHL players" That's just tip-top comedy right there folks. I'm assuming he also said "Maybe the Titanic was too unsinkable" and "Maybe the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was too stiff." Russia's top league wants so badly to be the NHL's competitor that they will do anything to try and maintain the illusion that it's a comparable league. The Olympics were a disaster for that, and no amount of propaganda from the KHL president can overcome that harsh truth. The Russian KHLers were awful. Even the one's who could play in the NHL at a high level, like Alexander Radulov, were completely invisible. The only positive memory anyone from the KHL has from the Olympics is the Latvian team taking the Czechs to overtime. The three medal winners were 2 of all NHLers, and one of mostly NHLers and all NHL or former NHLers.

Before the Olympics I thought the KHL was somewhere above the AHL but below the NHL, nw I'd sure like to see how the Calder Cup winner fairs in a best-of-seven with the KHL winner. And while we're at it, KHL coaches looked to be second class compared to NHL coaches or even coaches like the Swedes.

Winner: Slovakia
Took Canada to the brink and beat the Russians. Their 4th place finish is their highest ever. They probably are disappointed at not medaling, but they have nothing to be ashamed of. Well played tourney for them. Blowing that 3-1 lead in the Bronze game probably will still hurt for a long time.

Winner: Sidney Crosby
The NHL's poster boy scored the defining goal of the tournament, forever cementing his legendary status in Canada and his reputation as clutch. This was on the heels of an awful tournament for him (and he didn't play well all tournament). That goal covered a lot of warts for him this tourney.

Loser: Alexander Ovechkin
What kind of personal transformation overcame Alex the Great at the games. I guess he was trying to be more business-like, but he came off surly, arrogant, and most of all like a poor loser. Shoving Camera's out of people's faces and being downright disrespectful of the non-Russian media is going to have effects. I love the way OV plays the game, and I even like his antics sometimes, mainly because it comes from within and it's genuine. But this will make people question whether it's all an act, and if this is genuine Ovechkin. As a global superstar, he needs to realize that he's always a representative of the game of hockey.

Winner: Ryan Miller
Most outstanding player of the tournament, and if any one player gained enough credibility to breakthrough as a household name... he's the guy. By the way, if anyone doesn't think this performance will influence Vezina voting they are downright crazy That trophy is his to lose now.

Winner: Shea Weber
The guy shot the puck THROUGH THE DAMN NETTING! To go along with his gold medal he also received an over-sized stuffed animal that he gave to his sweetheart.

Loser: Brian Rafalski
For the same reason Crosby is a winner, Rafalski is a loser. Brian Rafalski is a great American Defenseman who was overshadowed by his Hall of Fame teammates (Lidstrom, Stevens, Neidermeyer) for so long that no one appreciated how good he is. He also had a brilliant tournament and was the USAs best skater in their win over Canada in the prelims, and likely the tournament.

But whenever I hear Rafalski's name from now on, All I'll be able to remember is his miserably failed clear that led to Toews goal. Or his putrid pass to Kesler on the powerplay that symbolized the struggles America was having in Yesterdays game. Or His inability to track Crosby leading directly to Crosby's goal and America's defeat. Or one of the other 35 turnovers he had yesterday. It's not really fair, because Rafalski was great all tourney and had his worst game (ever, not just in the Olympics) at the worst possible time. But he was USA's worst player Sunday. Luckily his defensive miscues were subtle enough that he's not going to be blamed for the loss like Scott Norwood or Bill Buckner. But he was directly responsible for 2 goals against in a 3-2OT loss. Still "Rafalski" is going to conjure up yesterdays kick-to-the-gut feelings every time I hear it.

Winner: Zack Parise
One of 2 breakout players of the tournament. He may be able to parlay this success into some endorsement opportunities, and hopefully the NHL will realize they have a cupboard full of stars other than Crosby and Ovechkin and star marketing them as well. He's even in the Eastern Conference.  He, teamed with Langenbrunner and Paul Stastny, were the best line in the tournament, and it really wasn't close. He was outstanding. Naturally NBC has no Devils games scheduled for the rest of the season

Loser: The Trapezoid
Why are we restricting goalies access to the puck again? There were a ton of goals caused by goalies being unable to play the puck. Martin Brodeur (whom the trapezoid is essentially named for) and Miikka Kiprusoff were particularly awful. If goalies handle like that it's time to ditch the rule.

Winner: Jonas Hiller
Sensational tournament for the Ducks goaltender. The Swiss are a dangerous team, almost solely because of him.

Loser: Martin Brodeur
I said it after the game, but it bears repeating: Marty's last two big games were USA and Game 7 vs CAR. He was the weak link in both of these. Do you know who was never the weak link in two consecutive big games: Patrick Roy. His claim to "Best of all time" is weaker now than before the Olympics.

Winner: Teemu Selanne
He might just have the best international career of all time. The Finnish Flash probably isn't getting the due he deserves, but he went out with a hard-earned Bronze.

Winner: USA Hockey
The youngest team in the tournament played nearly flawless hockey for two weeks. Before the tourney there were two tiers of teams: The top tier was Russia, Canada and Sweden and the second tier was USA, Finland and the Czechs. Now USA is unquestionably in the top tier, and every team will fear playing them. I'm betting Canada wants no part of Team USA anytime soon. USA Hockey looks set for a long time.

Winner: Canada
Yeah so this one is self-explanatory, since they actually, you know, won and all.

Jibblescribbits blogs about the Colorado Avalanche over at his self-titled bloguin blog: Jibblescribbits

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