[airborne]

Does the 5-3 scoreline refer to goals or the fights? Nobody seems to care about the goals in hockey. People seem to be interested only in the fights.

Clearly, you haven't watched hockey lately.

In fact, fighting in the Olympics means an automatic ejection! Not only from the game, but from the entire Olympics!

Maybe you might give it a look and not let old history form your opinion for you? Things have changed since the lock-out.

[airborne]

Olympic Hockey Ping!

Below is the playoff schedule for the Men's Ice Hockey. (thanks to MEG33 for providing the link)

The USA women play Canada Thursday Feb. 25, at 6:30 PM (Eastern) for the GOLD! The game should be on MSNBC! LIVE!(check your local listings!)

Here are the final seedings for the tournament:

1.USA

2.Sweden

3.Russia

4.Finland

5.Czech Republic

6.Canada

7.Slovakia

8.Switzerland

9.Belarus

10.Norway

11.Germany

12.Latvia

The next part of the tournament is the 'qualification' round, with the top four teams receiving a bye for this round. Here are the matchups for these games:

All times Eastern.

QP1 - Switzerland vs Belarus - Feb. 23 - 3:00 p.m.

QP2 - Czech Republic vs Latvia - Feb. 23 - 7:00 p.m.

QP3 - Slovakia vs Norway - Feb. 23/24 - 12:00 a.m.

QP4 - Canada vs Germany - Feb. 23 - 7:30 p.m.

This is single elimination now, so any loss and you are out of the tournament completely. Here's the schedule for the quarterfinals:

QF1 - USA vs QP1 Winner - Feb. 24 - 3:00 p.m.

QF2 - Finland vs QP2 Winner - Feb. 24 - 7:30 p.m.

QF3 - Sweden vs. QP3 Winner - Feb. 24 - 10:00 p.m.

QF4 - Russia vs. QP4 Winner - Feb. 24/25 - 12:00 a.m.

I'm guessing a 12 am start time for a potential Russia vs. Canada matchup will leave some hockey fans on the East Coast very, very unhappy.

Here's the rest of the tournament:

Semifinals:

QF1 vs QF2 - Feb. 26 - 3:00 p.m.

QF3 vs QF4 - Feb. 26 - 9:30 p.m.

Here's the medal games. Of course, the bronze medal game is between the losers of the two semifinals game.

Bronze Medal Game - Feb. 27 - 10:00 p.m.

Gold Medal Game - Feb. 28 - 3:15 p.m.

[Varda]

Apparently America cared about hockey Sunday night!

"MSNBC Draws Massive Viewership For USA-Canada Classic
An average audience of 8.22 million watched the USA hockey team defeat Canada, 5-3, nearly matching the best average viewership for a program on MSNBC. (Election Night Coverage, 8.23 million on Nov. 4, 2008)."