More Medalists

TigerBlog was going to include in yesterday's weekend round-up that the Canadian women's hockey team had advanced to the Olympic gold medal game.

As you know, Princetonians Sarah Fillier and Claire Thompson have been having incredible tournaments for Canada. 

The only issue with writing about it for yesterday was that the semifinal game hadn't started yet when TB was writing and wouldn't be over until the middle of the night. What if Canada had actually lost? The Canadians were overwhelming favorites against Switzerland, but hey, it's sports. You never know.

Back when TB was a sportswriter, in his early, early days of doing it, he covered a high school baseball game in the afternoon. The team that won that game would win a share of the league championship only if the worst team in the league beat the best team in a game that was being played that night. 

TB wanted to write something like "the win wasn't enough to get a share of the championship because Team A beat Team B in the late game" and was going to do it, but he decided not to because hey, you never know, right? And what happened? The lights on the field didn't work and the game had to be pushed to the next day. Lesson learned.

As it turned out, Canada beat Switzerland 10-3 to in fact advance to the championship game, which will be played Wednesday night at 11:10 pm Eastern time (or basically noon in China). Thompson had the first goal of the game and added two more assists

The Canadians' opponent will be, unsurprisingly, the United States, who defeated Finland 4-1 in the other semifinal, played yesterday morning (Eastern time).

It's hardly shocking stuff that the U.S. and Canada meet for the gold medal. As TB wrote back when Fillier and Thompson were named to the team:

Sarah Fillier and Claire Thompson were named to the Canadian women's hockey Olympic team, which sort of guarantees them either a gold or silver medal. This will be the seventh time there has been a women's Olympic ice hockey tournament, and Canada currently stands at four gold medals and two silvers. 

This will be the sixth time the final is the U.S. and Canada, by the way. Canada defeated the U.S. 4-2 in the round robin part of the tournament.

Perhaps in four years it would be better if the U.S. and Canada play a best-of-seven for the gold medal and all the other teams play for the bronze? 

Regardless of what happens in the final, Fillier and Thompson are guaranteed to win a medal, whether it be gold or silver. In doing so, they will become Princeton's second and third women varsity athletes to become Winter Olympic medalists, after Andrea Kilbourne won a silver in ice hockey in 2002.

Should Canada win, they'll also double Princeton's women's gold medalists, as they'd join Caroline Lind (rowing) and Ashleigh Johnson (water polo). Both Lind and Johnson won two gold medals.

Chloe Kim is also a two-time Olympic gold medalist and is also a Princeton student, but the snowboarder is not a Princeton varsity athlete. Neither was Joey Cheek, a three-time speed skating medalist, including having won gold.

Charlie Volker, the former Princeton football and track star, made his Olympic debut in the two-man bobsled yesterday and was out of medal contention after the first two runs. He has a much better chance of being in contention in the four-man event later in the week.

TB texted Princeton head football coach Bob Surace and former colleague Craig Sachson about how amazing it is that Volker was in the Olympic Games less than three years after graduating from Princeton and less than two years after first becoming a bobsledder. Their pride in Volker is obvious, as is the pride of everyone at Princeton.

In the meantime, there is the women's hockey final. Fillier has been among the leading scorers of the tournament, and Thompson already holds the record for points by a defenseman in the Olympics.

TB's hope is stay up and watch the game, even with the 11 pm face-off. 

In a perfect world, you'll wake up Thursday morning and be able to read about it, but that might be a bit much.