The USA will be bringing home a bronze in women’s hockey. It’s not the gold, but, as someone wrote in a comment on this blog– it’s no piece of lettuce. Contratulations, USA! The US women’s team defeated Finland 4-0 today in the bronze medal match.

And in an update: Canada (of course) took the gold, and Sweden took the silver.

NBC will broadcast the women’s hockey gold medal round starting at 1 p.m. today (CST). Canada will compete against Sweden. Will Sweden be able to pull of another upset?

Also being broadcast at that time– women’s bobsledding. Americans Vonetta Flowers and Jean Prahm won the gold in Salt Lake City. Will they have the same success today?

If you’re home today for President’s Day, you might want to check out women’s hockey, coming up live on MSNBC at 9:30. The bronze medal round pits the USA (who was expected to be fighting it out with Canada for a medal of a different color) against Finland. Hopefully, the USA can hold onto a medal, despite their surprising loss to Sweden in the semi-finals.

I am shocked and appalled! The US women’s Olympic hockey team blew a 2-0 lead over Sweden and were eliminated from medal contention. This was not supposed to happen. It’s like the reverse of the men’s hockey “miracle” team. So, Sweden will be playing against Canada, I’m assuming, in the gold medal round. Unbelievable.

Women’s hockey has a smaller field, so only the top 2 teams in each group are involved in the medal tournament. The medal tournament starts tomorrow, February 17. The first round will be Canada versus Finland and USA versus Sweden.

Group A

Canada 3-0
Sweden 2-1
Russia 1-2
Italy 0-3

Group B

USA 3-0
Finland 2-1
Germany 1-2
Switzerland 0-3

Here are the current standings for the men’s hockey tournament. Medal play starts next week, February 22.

Group A

Finland 2-0
Canada 1-0
Czech Republic 1-1
Switzerland 1-1
Germany 0-1
Italy 0-2

Group B

Sweden 1-0
Slovakia 1-0
Latvia 1 tie
USA 1 tie
Russian 0-1
Kazakhstan 0-1

Remember that the top 4 teams from each group advance to medal tournament.

Perhaps you’re like me and have no idea how the Olympic tournament works. Well, here’s the lowdown. The men’s and women’s tournaments work somewhat differently because there are fewer teams in the women’s tournament. But the tournaments start out the same.

So, here are the basics. All the teams are put in Group A or Group B. Everybody in group A plays each other. Everybody in group B plays each other. Rankings are based on your win/loss record.

In the men’s group, there is a quarterfinal round, where the top 4 teams from group A play the top 4 teams from group B. The winners go to the semifinals. The winners of the semifinals play each other for gold and silver. The losers play each other for bronze.

The women’s group works almost exactly the same, except there is no quarterfinal round.

Incidentally, curling works very similarly. Stay tuned for hockey and curling standings.

The women are continuing their march towards the gold medal round with a 5-0 victory over Germany.

I haven’t written much about them, but the women who play hockey for the U.S.A. are really good. In fact, it’s expected that the medal round will come down to USA versus Canada. So, far that prediction seems safe, as the U.S. team shut out Switzerland in their first game. This afternoon (7 p.m. Turin time), they meet the German team. Women’s ice hockey is a relatively new Olympic sport, but it has really caught on in the United States, where girls and young women have played on boys’ teams for quite some time.

For the third straight Olympics, Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios will captain the U.S. Olympic team. Chelios is also the oldest player on the team, at 44. Along with fellow 2006 Olympian Keith Tkachuk, Chelios is one of only two U.S. hockey players to make four Olympic squads (1984, 1998, 2002, 2006).

Vancouver Canucks defenseman Ed Jovanovski will miss the Olympics because of a lower abdominal injury that requires surgery. Jovanovski will most likely be replaced by Toronto defenseman Bryan McCabe, who is just returning to play after a groin injury. Team Canada is also waiting to hear whether Anaheim defenseman Scott Niedermayer, who has a small tear in his knee that may require arthroscopic surgery, will be making the trip to Turin.

Vladimir Krikunov, head coach of the Russian hockey team, says that he has the answer to post-game stress. Three shots of vodka. He considers it mandatory.

Well, yeah, I guess that would do it. Hard to feel stressed when you’re passed out.

The women’s Olympic hockey team should be in good shape since they bring to the games several experienced members.

Olympic veterans Jenny Potter, Katie King, Tricia Dunn-Luoma and Angela Ruggiero were selected Tuesday for the U.S. women’s hockey team that will compete at the Turin Games. This will be the third Olympics for all four.

To read more about the U.S. Women’s hockey team, check out this ESPN article.