Canada vs. Sweden Redux

Tonight's the Gold Medal game of the 2009 IIHF World Junior Championship. Canada vs. Sweden. Sweet! They're in Ottawa this year and I envy the big and boisterous crowd in the stadium.

The Canada-Sweden matchup mirrors last year's Gold Medal game, where Canada won a hard-fought 3-4 victory in overtime. So the Swedes will be pretty hungry for revenge.

Reactions to Sweden's Magnus Paajarvi's comments to a Swedish website that the Canadians would "shit in their pants" if Sweden scored two quick goals in the game (which ranged from crude [The Edmonton Sun called him a "Swedish meatball"] to annoyed, to sanguine [the Canadian players and coaches], to bemused [me]) have largely been assuaged by the fact that the Canadians scored their first goal at 38 seconds into the first period. (Paajarvi later said that the comments 'meant something different in Swedish', by which I assume he meant it was badly translated, which may be true. Or may not, because doesn't it just sound like something a 17-year-old hockey player would say?)

I love the Juniors. So much more interesting than the NHL these days. So with 4:08 left in the first period, I'm settling in for some good hockey.

ronnie