2010 Women's Olympic Hockey: Why Bother? US-Canada for Gold!

People watching Canada and the USA blowout the competition—if you can call it that—are tuning out after the first period or, in the case of the opening match between Sweden and Switzerland, falling asleep.

It would be a surprise to most anyone if any of the teams in this tournament were to even give the USA or Canada a run for their money in any of these games.

Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland sit behind the two powerhouses yet are fumbling foes at best.

Countries on the rise that are putting money into their Women’s Hockey programs including the previously mentioned countries, are Russia, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Germany, Slovakia, Norway, and the Czech’s. But will they ever really be competition?

Not for 20 years at best, so you can keep handing the gold and silver out to Canada and the US!

If you looked down the list of winners of IIHF Women’s World Championship’s hockey competitions you will see Canada and the USA listed as the winners of all of them, with Finland, Sweden, and Russia, once, as the third place finishers.

There are 34 countries listed at the IIHF website for women’s hockey, including Australia, South Africa, Great Britain, and last-placed Bulgaria. Unless these countries are hosting the games they will, and never is a long time, but NEVER be in the mix.

Being from Canada and having one of the dominant teams in this tournament, I don’t mind the free medal.

Watching Canada and the USA play for gold will be a great game as the two teams have a long history of hatred for each other, they have had many epic battles, and are very talented hockey players.

But within this tournament and within IIHF Women’s hockey there is not even an inkling of parity amongst the teams when including Canada and the US, and until there is this is will stay a two-team tournament with all the rest as an afterthought.

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