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The Olympic women’s hockey tournament kicks off Thursday in Beijing, which means the first hockey game of the tournament will be on TV Wednesday night as Canada takes on Switzerland. Even though we’ve known the Olympics was coming, it still feels like it snuck up on us a bit.
The men’s tournament is still a week away, but I wanted to get you all primed up for both events with a couple of experts that provide tremendous insight into the tournament field as a whole. So Episode 35 is a DOUBLE EPISODE featuring two guests and over two hours of wall-to-wall Olympics talk.
Up first, I invited women’s hockey reporter Nicole Haase, a freelancer who works for USCHO and the The Victory Press, to help break down the women’s tournament with a particular focus on Team USA. We covered everything from the lack of hype for this Olympics, the changing of the guard on the USWNT, positions of strength and weakness and what we learned about the women’s team in their pre-Olympic Tour.
After that, Nicole and I look at Team Canada before breaking down the rest of the field and looking at players the general public will probably learn more about during these Olympics.
After that great segment, I welcome Steven Ellis of The Hockey News. When it comes to international hockey, few — if any — people are more researched and knowledgeable than Steven. Since I already broke down the U.S. roster with Brad Schlossman in my last episode, Steven and I talk most about Team Canada and expectations. After that, we go team-by-team and I circle back to get Steven’s thoughts on USA’s youthful strategy for Beijing. We also chat about the actual benefits of the tournament not including NHL players, even though we’d both prefer they be there.
There’s a lot of ground covered that I hope will help get you ready and maybe a little more excited about the Winter Olympics.
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Talking Hockey Sense Episode 35: Mega Olympic Preview with Nicole Haase and Steven Ellis