Day 13Kleibrink wins curling bronze
Canada's Shannon Kleibrink regrouped from a tough semifinal loss to win the bronze medal in women's curling on Thursday at the Torino Olympics.
Kleibrink defeated Norway's Dordi Nordby 11-4 in eight ends to earn the bronze, a day after seeing her gold-medal chances evaporate with a loss to Switzerland's Mirjam Ott.
"You just think of everybody back home, all the fans here that supported us," an emotional Kleibrink said after the bronze medal game. "Thanks to everybody for your support."
Kleibrink, who was born in Norquay, Sask., now curls out of Calgary along with third Amy Nixon, second Glenys Bakker, lead Christine Keshen and alternate Sandra Jenkins. It was Canada's second consecutive bronze medal in Olympic women's curling, after Kelley Law of British Columbia won bronze at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.
The late Sandra Schmirler of Regina remains the only Canadian skip, male or female, to win an Olympic title. She won gold at the 1998 Nagano Games, the first time in the modern era that curling appeared as an official Olympic event.
Kleibrink jumped on Nordby immediately on Thursday, scoring four in the first end and picking up a steal of one in the second. Nordby got one back in the third and stole one more in the fourth before Kleibrink all but wrapped up the game in the fifth end.
With Kleibrink lying four, Nordby sailed a draw attempt through the house. That allowed Kleibrink to put another stone in the rings and score her second four-point end of the game to go up 9-2. Nordby recovered from her gaffe in the next end, making good on a draw to the four-foot to count two and cut Kleibrink's lead to five.
Klebrink regained her seven-point lead in the seventh, converting a free draw for two to go up 11-4. Nordby picked up one to make the score 11-5 and the teams shook hands after the eighth end, the earliest a game can be conceded.
Early exit for Canada's men a disgrace
When the Canadians fell 2-0 to Russia in a sudden-death quarter-final, their third shutout loss in six games, the excuses started to flow like Italian red wine. Canda's early demise from the tournament was blamed on the size of the ice and injuries to key players, the reality this group of individuals played with no heart.
"We know we have to win the gold," Team Canada executive director Wayne Gretzky told Sun Media before the Olympics. "We don't have anything else on our minds."
I don't think it was a simple matter of over looking oppenants as Chris Pronger and others suggested, the facts are, Team Canada was stock piled with great individuals, but few team players.
The Canadian outfit was stock-piled with NHL scorers but, they didn't even have a true checking line. They couldn't beat Finland's Antero Niittymaki, Switzerland's Martin Gerber and Russia's Evgeni Nabokov. The first two weren't even No. 1 goalies in the NHL before this season. Another disappointment was Canada's undisciplined play. Too often, players took penalties that proved costly.
Pronger said his team had a tough time adjusting to the new rules early on, believing the game would be called to NHL standards. This is a cop out, Pronger has problems playing by the rules period, no matter how the officials call a game.
How about Canada's power play? It was horrific, going 0-for-8 against Russia and converting just five of 40 chances in the tournament.
"We'll probably think about it a lot," Quinn said of his team's lack of offence. "We have a talented group that does score in the National Hockey League, but the bottom line was that we had to come together as a team and we didn't do it as well as we needed to."
I don't want to criticize another Hamiltonian and great coach, but Quinn sounded like a broken record with every passing day, saying his team didn't play as five-man units. No kidding, Canada put together a roster that didn't have a chance to develop the required chemistry in such a short tournament, in fact there's more chemistry going on in the average grade eight lab.
Gretzky and his executive committee chose to pat their buddies on the back. Reuniting a bunch of players who won the 2002 Olympic tournament in Salt Lake City and 2004 World Cup, while young up-and-comers like Eric Staal and Jason Spezza were relegated to the taxi squad. Pittsburgh Penguins rookie standout Sidney Crosby was ignored completely, despite sitting 12th in NHL scoring with 65 points in 58 games. Fellow speedsters like Jonathan Cheechoo and Patrick Marleau, both having career seasons with the San Jose Sharks, also couldn't make the cut.
Instead, guys like Todd Bertuzzi, Rick Nash, Kris Draper, Vincent Lecavalier and Ryan Smyth got the call. None of them will leave Turin having scored a goal. The Great One fed the media another understatement when he said,
"People are going to question who was on the ice and who was on the team and that's OK," Gretzky told CBC Sports. "I'm a pretty big boy. I can stand up [to any criticism].
"[But] obviously we have to do something different for 2010."
Sending Bertuzzi, coming off a one-year suspension for an incident involving Colorado's Steve Moore, was sending the wrong message. As far as what could have been? Canada would have been far superior if we could have sent players like Nash, who was brilliant at the 2005 world championships playing on a line with Joe Thornton, but has spent the bulk of this season battling injuries, or top defencemen Ed Jovanovski and Scott Niedermayer. Both had to withdraw from the team after undergoing abdominal and knee surgery, respectively. It also hurt Team Canada in the leadership department when Steve Yzerman and Mario Lemieux withdrew their names from consideration. Lemieux went on to retire, citing health concerns.
If may be only a game, but I don't think that saying applies this time . When any team puts the maple leaf on their sweater and they go into an Olympic tournament and get knocked out in the quarter finals, get shut out on three occassions, and had 37 minutes of power plays during which they failed to score in those three shutout losses, that is an epic disaster.
(quotes, courtesy of the CBC)
Later,
Kenaz
