The USA men’s ice hockey team has held off a courageous performance from Switzerland to book their place in the semi-finals of the event with a 2-0 win at Canada Hockey Place.
The USA men’s ice hockey team has held off a courageous performance from Switzerland to book their place in the semi-finals of the event with a 2-0 win at Canada Hockey Place.
The USA is the first team to qualify for the semi-finals and will play the winner of the game between the Czech Republic and Finland.
USA entered the match against Switzerland with shortening odds to win their first Olympic title since Lake Placid in 1980, and started the opening period all over the Swiss outfit.
Switzerland had been in impressive form throughout the tournament, falling to the US in their opening pool game, 3-1, before taking Canada to penalties in their second match, losing to a Sidney Crosby goal.
In yesterday’s quarter-finals qualification match, the Swiss prevailed over Belarus, with the match once again going to penalties.
The USA however were running the ice and it only took some quality saves from Swiss goalie Jonas Hiller, to keep the scores tied at 0-0. In fact Hiller had to deal with 44 shots during the USA dominated fixture.
Approaching the end of the second period, the USA launched yet another attack and with time almost elapsed Ryan Kesler let go with a shot that made it through Hiller as the buzzer went. The USA celebrated the goal but the referees checked the replay and ruled the goal out.
The third period started with another USA attack that resulted with the opening goal of the match from Zach Parise during a USA power play. It took this goal for the Swiss to hit their straps and they launched attack after attack on the goalmouth, being denied firstly by USA goalie Ryan Miller, and then by the frame of the goal.
With only a minute remaining Switzerland played with an empty net to force an equaliser, but following another goalmouth scramble, Parise raced away to seal the match for the United States with his second goal.
The second quarter-final of the day will feature host nation Canada against fellow medal favourites, Russia. The game will commence at 4.40pm (Vancouver time).
David Polglase
AOC-Vancouver
