I love hockey.

I played when I was a youth and enjoyed everything about it… the character-building, the camaraderie, the sounds of skates on the ice and the ritual of wrapping my stick with tape and strapping pads on. I’m looking forward to today’s Olympic hockey gold medal game so much I can’t even tell you.

As a true fan of hockey I feel that Canadian ice is the hallowed, sacred ground. The gods smile upon each and every drop of water that fills the rink in Canada today. As a golf lover it’s much like the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland [insert angelic choir here]. Yes, to play hockey on ice divined in Canada against a Canadian team is right in so many ways. For us True Believers there is no loser today… there’s only hockey as it should be.

Having said this I’m now free to indulge, selfishly, in patriotic pride. Go USA! I trust my Canadian friends know that spirit is part and parcel of being American as I know theirs is for them but really… it’s hockey in Canada against a Canadian team – it’s a win/win point of pride no matter what.

Okay, lets talk statistics like a true sport geek for a second because this is interesting:

In the run up to today’s gold medal game we’ve seen the US beat Finland 6-1 (with a record-setting 6 goals in the first period but not sure what to make of the non-scoring throughout the last two periods). We beat Canada in preliminaries prior to that. However, what’s more important is that it means we’ve played each other and have had time for both teams to review the games in preparation for today.

Here’s where it gets interesting. That US vs. Finland 6-1 game was, with respect, a walkover. However, Canada barely beat Slovakia in their semi-final 3-2… Canada squeaked by on what might have been considered a secondary team. The interesting bit is that Slovakia and Finland had a higher scoring game against one-another than Canada had with Slovakia. In the end, the team we beat so well was the team that beat Canada’s squeaker… Finland beat Slovakia.

In a nutshell, the team we trounced beat the team Canada barely beat. We now play Canada.

I know, it would seem I’m suggesting that, statistically, we’re scheduled to play an inferior team (if all you did was base things on the winning model of Olympic preliminaries and semis). However, that couldn’t be further from the case. Actually, hockey, like baseball and football, can have many variables that come into play during eliminations.

Could the rest/recovery schedule be at work? Could a coach be biding time for more “important” games down the line in terms of protecting players from injury in less aggressive game play? What about the schedule and sequence of the eliminations themselves favoring one team over another?

Then, there’s the whole rock, paper, scissors element. A great team against a great team must make adjustments during the game (or in prep for a later game) to account for strengths and weaknesses. Finland switched goalies against the US late, I believe. It was 4-0 when the Finnish goalie himself went to the boards and presumably asked to be switched. Frankly, it should have been a call made by the coach one lost goal earlier. However, be that as it may, Canada won’t make decisions slow. They will make the vast majority of their decisions quickly and they’ll likely be correct ones from the get-go. Canada does not make rookie mistakes in play or coaching. Neither does the US.

My gut tells me that, although I want to see a close, high-scoring game today that ultimately goes into over-time with no empty-nets and sees the US score the final, winning goal in dramatic, back-shot fashion… I suspect it’ll be a case of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. My gut says each goal will be hard-won and jealously guarded, with both teams countering like freight trains in a tug of war with only the chain breaking between the two!

This is likely to be one of the best hockey games we’ll ever see!

I shall be watching and recording it in 55 inches of high definition glory and will have a soft spot on the sofa cleared out where I will collapse afterward, exhausted and spent.

Thank you Team USA and Team Canada for making today everything a true hockey fan could hope for. Thank you Canada for taking such good care of all of us during these 2010 Olympics.

GO USA!