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First Intermission Thoughts

The second all North America gold medal game in the last three Olympiads got underway with a fast pace and some furious play. Jonathan Toews ended Ryan Miller's scoreless streak with just over seven minutes to go in the period. For each team, the first goal had been an essential harbinger of success. With forty minutes of hockey left, omens are not to be trusted. At least not yet. The Americans played right with the very skilled and insanely deep Canadian team.

Canada did a fantastic job winning face-offs and pressuring the US defensemen. It was pressure on Bryan Rafalski that set up Mike Richards shot. Miller stopped Richards, but the rebound went to Toews to give him a clean shot of the net and the first goal against Ryan Miller in over 123 minutes of play.

Team USA scrapped through the period. Playing agressive on the fore check and pestering Canada when they came into the American zone. They allowed one odd man rush, a 3-2 that became a 4-2 but Miller held fast. America saw a good flurry to close the period drawing the shots on net closer as time ran out on the first twenty minutes.

Aggressive play on both sides made it a fun and exciting first period. But with forty minutes to go, both teams need to stick to fundamental play, clearing the zone, making crisp passes. Neither team won the game in the first and neither team lost it. Forty minutes to decide the gold, and Canada holds a slim lead.

Scoring Summary

• 12:50 Jonathan Toews from Mike Richards

Penalties

• 14:02 Bobby Ryan (tripping)

Shots

Joe Tetreault blogs about sports, culture, business/technology and current events at TetreaultVision in addition to being the Editor for Bloguin's Olympic Hockey Blog.

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Welcome to your gold medal game, Vancouver.  Best of luck to both squads, but as an American, there is no other option but to say, "go USA."

Your goalies are Ryan Miller and Roberto Luongo.  We're sixty minutes of glorious playoff style hockey (and maybe more) from the gold.

With the big Gold Medal showdown between the United States and Canada less than a few hours away, Olympic fever is sweeping both nations.

No sir, NHL action starts up again tomorrow. 
Then you can go back to sleep.

So to get you ready, The Royal Half decided to interview some of the people involved in the the big game. Let's see what they had to say after the jump!

vs.

Gold Medal Game: USA vs. Canada - February 28, 2010 12:00pm PST - Canada Hockey Place

The gold medal matchup comes down to a rematch between Team USA and Team Canada. This is a game for bragging rights for both the players and their fans. This game is so big that NBC will air this game live. Canada would like to apologize to people that our country is shutting down for three hours between 12pm and 3pm as we will be tuned in to watch the game. Even if you don't like hockey, you should be watching it as this may turn out to be one of those games that we talk about for a long time. This may also be the last hockey game in the Olympics that the NHL participates in.

Only 7 minutes into the third period of the Canada vs. Slovakia semi-final on friday night, the home crowd chanted "We want U-S-A" and they got what they wished for, it's a Canada vs. USA gold medal game.

Roberto Luongo will have the nation's hopes for a gold medal on his shoulders today. This is the biggest game in his career thus far. Back in Salt Lake in 2002 Martin Brodeur was the starter in goal for their gold medal win. This time round, Brodeur was expected to be the goalie for Team Canada again. He had the chance but he crumbled. In a 5-3 loss to the United States, Brodeur put Babcock in a position where he had to make a goalie change. Luongo was tapped on the shoulder and told he would be the starter for Team Canada.

Luongo now faces the pressure and expectations of his whole country to play a better game than Ryan Miller.