Posts Tagged ‘overtime games’
Golden Goal
It happened again! This time, it was the Women’s US Hockey Team Defender, Megan Keller, scoring in a 3-on-3 overtime period to win the Gold Medal in the Olympics. And again, if it hadn’t actually happened, I would declare this scene in a movie as too improbable, sappy, and overdone.
If you didn’t see it, there is a video showing the goal from every camera angle that is a work of art. [That clip may be subject to an ad before starting, but trust me, the video is worth the wait.] As I watched this compilation the first time, I found myself giggling each time it showed the players throwing off gloves and heaving sticks skyward in celebration.
The fairy tale of yesterday’s victory by Team USA started well before that spectacular golden goal in overtime and deserves a retelling for those of you who may have missed it. The USA was losing 1-0, with time dwindling in the third period. Before the clock had reached 2 minutes to go in the game, the US coach pulled his Goalie to put a sixth player on the ice for a faceoff in the Canadian end of the rink.
With no goalie protecting the US net, it was do-or-die to control the puck and get shots toward Canada’s goal. The US won possession of the faceoff, and the puck was passed to Laila Edwards near the blue line. Edwards lined up her shot, hesitating just a critical moment for an opening before sending the puck toward the Canadian goalie. Defying odds, US team captain, Hilary Knight, expertly positioned her stick to deflect the puck into the net to tie the score and force the overtime period.
In overtime, the key to providing Megan Keller the chance to ultimately seal the victory came from way back near the US goal, where Forward, Taylor Heise (a member of the Minnesota Frost of the PWHL), served up a well-timed loooong pass up to Keller as Canada was trying to get fresh skaters on the ice.
Megan took it from there, looking cool as a cucumber with a dangle of the puck past the lone defender to bring her in front of the goal, where she flipped a backhand shot with enough confidence that the puck had no choice but to sneak over the goalie’s pad and under her stick-hand blocker to end up in the back of the net.
GOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!
Let the celebration commence.
Seriously, watch that compilation of the winning goal happening over and over from different angles and ultimately in slow motion. If you watch it with sound, the play-by-play announcer is only featured in the first one. All the rest offer the beauty of just the crowd’s reaction, with a rise when Keller outsmarts the defense and then the eruption when the puck ends up in the net.
I’m going to be watching this clip more times than I watched the replay of Quinn Hughes’ overtime goal the day before.
The US Men’s team plays a semifinal against Slovakia this afternoon. I hope my nerves can handle more of this excitement.
In another version of ice and skates, shout out to Alysa Liu for her spectacular skating yesterday!
So much Winter Olympic fun to be had.
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Desired Outcomes
Winning can be so sweet. Yesterday, I was able to enjoy Defenseman Quinn Hughes, of the NHL Minnesota Wild, scoring the winning goal for the USA in the last of the Men’s Hockey quarterfinal games in the Olympics. It was a fairy tale of a finish. If that had been scripted for a Hollywood movie, I would have thought it to be too cliché, over the top, and completely unbelievable.
The color commentary included in this video clip of the goal captures the essence really well, but I can’t help reiterating it here. In a prior shift of the 3-on-3 next-goal-wins overtime period, Quinn Hughes was defended so well by Team Sweden forward, Joel Eriksson Ek (a teammate of Hughes’ on the Wild), that Hughes couldn’t get off a forehand shot. He was held to a weak backhand flick that the Swedish goalie easily saved.
The next time Quinn Hughes was on the ice, the announcer pointed out that Quinn waved off the bench to indicate he wasn’t ready to switch and wanted to remain in the play. Sounds like Hollywood to me.
Then, he maneuvered himself with a quick passing exchange with his teammate, Matt Boldy (also a MN Wild forward), before gliding across the middle as the 3rd teammate, Auston Matthews, floated underneath to give Quinn a chance to position himself for the winning forehand shot.
An absolutely magical finish. That is, for US fans. The view from Sweden must be a lot uglier.
The view out our windows at Wintervale was pretty ugly yesterday for driving. Unfortunately, driving is what Cyndie did for around seven hours as rain turned to a freezing mix and then to all snow, making roads slick and accidents plentiful. She witnessed a dizzying number of cars that had spun out into ditches and medians or crashed in a variety of ways.
Visibility was greatly diminished, and the route she intended became backed up, so she had to go well out of her way to complete her journey, spending 4 hours straight to make her way back home around 8 p.m.
I might have been a little tense watching the hockey game go into overtime, but she was hanging on for dear life. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her so happy to be home.
We were both extremely happy to have been granted our desired outcomes.
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Feathered Alarm
Busy birds are building nests and doing their courting dances this time of year. Some of them need to establish their territories and discourage competition from other possible suitors. This year, more than any other previous time, more than one bird has taken to facing off against their reflections in our windows. The first year we were here, there was a cardinal that the sellers warned us about. He came back annually enough times that they eventually named him.
They named a variety of wildlife that made repeated visits, so that wasn’t so strange. Rodney the Cardinal showed up for about two years after we arrived and then vanished.
Now we are getting both Robins and Cardinals clacking their beaks against our windows. And not just the males.
Yesterday morning, a female Cardinal showed up at the door in our bedroom that opens to the back deck. Fluttering wings and a pecking beak tapping away at its reflection.
The sun wasn’t up yet, but the songbirds were. This one was tapping up and down on the full glass door as I was checking my phone for results from the MN Wild hockey game that went into overtime and forced me to go to sleep without knowing the result.
Cyndie’s morning sleep cycle was interrupted by the feathered alarm. That ultimately paid off for me because her earlier-than-usual start contributed to her feeling ready to join me in the morning feeding of horses for the first time since breaking her ankle last November.
I was really glad I had chosen not to keep watching the playoff hockey game after the third period ended with the score tied around 11:30 p.m. They ended up needing more than half of a second overtime period before one of the teams got the puck past the opposing goalie. The game ended at 1:00 a.m. and I had been in dreamland for an hour and a half by that time.
Happily, it was the Wild team that triumphed in game 1 of this best-of-7 first-round series of the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Dallas Stars.
Game 2 happens tonight and I am hoping it gets decided in just 3 periods. As it is, games ending at 11:30 at night are already keeping me up past my healthy bedtime. Also, I’m not feeling up to the stress of watching the drama of sudden-death overtime hockey.
The Gopher hockey team losing their NCAA Championship game against Quinnipiac just 10 seconds into overtime did me in. I no longer have the fortitude to watch overtime playoff hockey. Not for a while, anyway.
Not while the wild birds are feeling a need to peck against our glass doors and windows at too-early-o’clock in the morning.
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Relative Something 