Winter Olympics 2014, Day 7: Halfpipe gold salvages sour day for USA

After having played their first two games against the tournament powerhouses in the United States and Canada, Finland and Switzerland got a crack at a more competitive tilt. And it played out as such, with teams needing overtime, before Jenni Hiirikoski scored to give Finland the victory. Noora Raty didn’t have her usual workload in net for the Finns, and had a bit of an off game, allowing three goals on 27 shots, but was still able to do enough for the victory.

In the most anticipated game of the women’s tournament thus far, the two rivals did not disappoint. Leading up to the Games, the American women had defeated the Canadians four consecutive times, but the defending gold-A full day of Olympic hockey featured two games on the women’s sides, and the opening two games of the men’s tournament.medal winners exacted a measure of revenge on Tuesday, handing the USA its first loss of the tournament. The Americans took a 1-0 lead, before three straight Canadian goals flipped the script. A frantic, late push by the Americans cut the deficit to one with an extra attacker on the ice, but that’s as close as USA would get, and the Canadians held on for a 3-2 win.

Dominique Gisin of Switzerland and Tina Maze of Slovenia are co-gold medalists in women’s downhill. (Alain Grosclaude/Agence Zoom/Getty Images)

Skiing is dangerous: Monaco’s Alexandra Coletti gets taken off the mountain by helicopter after a crash in the women’s downhill final. (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

Erik Karlsson has no problem scoring against NHL goaltenders. So when the Czech Republic trotted out two goaltenders—one from the Czech league and one from the KHL—Karlsson did what’s made him so successful in his five-year professional career: he scored.

Things wouldn’t get better immediately for the Czech Repbulic though, as Karlsson scored his second of the day—this one on the power play—to give Sweden its largest lead of the day at 4-0.

After dominating the short program in pairs free skating on Tuesday, the Russian pairing of Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov finished things off in the way that was expected of them, by cruising to another giant score in the free program and a gold medal in their home country.

The duo scored a 152.69 in the free program on Wednesday to add on to its 84.17 in the short program, and the 236.86 combined score was more than 18 points better than the second-place team of Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov, also from Russia, who put up a 218.68 combined score. Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy of Germany finished in third with a 215.78.

For nearly 60 minutes, it looked like Ted Nolan’s Latvian side might be able to eek out a result against Swtizerland. Behind the strong play from goalie Edgar Masalskis, the Latvians kept the game scoreless, with overtime on the horizon.

But Simon Moser scored with only 7.9 seconds remaining in regulation, and Switzerland won the opening game of the men’s tournament over Latvia.

Six gold medals were handed out on Wednesday and some of the disappointment from Tuesday was erased with Kaitlyn Farrington claiming the gold medal in the Ladies’ Snowboard Halfpipe.

The podium came down to 1.25 point between gold and bronze, with some wonderful riding at the Rosa Khutor extreme center. Team USA’s win helped ease Shani Davis’ loss in speed skating, where he failed to capture his third straight gold.

We all want to be Olympians for a day, even Steve Harvey. Which is why NBC sent its talk show host to try his hand at one of the lesser-known winter games.

Picture Steve Harvey in your mind. Now imagine him curling. Congratulations, it was EXACTLY what happened.

Early Wednesday, Switzerland’s Dominique Gisin sat at the bottom of the women’s downhill course, holding onto first place with a time of 1:41.57. She watched opponent after opponent attempt and fail to match her time, until Slovenia’s Tina Maze bolted down the hill.

Maze had an edge over Gisin midway through the course, but by the time she crossed the finish line, that edge evaporated. Incredibly, Maze finished over the line in 1:41.57, the exact same time as Gisin. 19 racers followed Maze, and none of them could top the dual leaders, leaving us with a tie for the gold medal. No silver medal was awarded as a result, and Switzerland’s Lara Gut won bronze, finished .10 seconds behind Gisin and Maze.

There’s an over-abundance of admiration for humility. Athletes are supposed to “act like they’ve been there before,” but for Olympian this stuff only happens ever four years -- and there’s a good chance they’ll never be there again.

That’s why we appreciate Germany’s Eric Frenzel just going for it on the podium instead of being boring. Even if his fellow competitors seem slightly confused.

Not much has changed in terms of medal count since the end of action on Tuesday, save for the rich getting richer with the Norwegians tacking on one more medal. The Dutch have added two more to tie the Canadians for second place in the current medal standings with three final events yet to finish on Wednesday. Norway, Canada and the Netherlands have now stockpiled 12, 10 and 10 medals, respectively, while the United States is next in line with seven.

Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland finished the women’s downhill event in the exact same time (1:41.57) to each grab gold, and Lara Gut, also of Switzerland, finished just a tenth of a second behind (1:41.67) to take bronze. The results left each country with four medals through the Olympics first seven days.

Part of what you get when you spend $51 billion on hosting the Olympics.

One medal was available in Men’s Speed Skating on Wednesday with Shani Davis seeking his third straight gold in the 1000 m, but it wasn’t to be as the Netherlands continued their dominance of the sport.

It was a long wait before Davis took to the ice after being placed in the 18th pair of 20. He was matched up against decorated Netherlands speed skater Koen Verweij, which was good because even though the two talented skaters weren’t competing head-to-head, it did allow Davis to have a solid opponent to pace himself against.

Team Canada used a dominant third period to overcome 1-0 deficit, beating the USA 3-2 in the final game of group play for women’s hockey on Wednesday.

It was meaningless game in the context of the tournament itself, with both the USA and Canada already securing their spots in playoff round, yet it was clear neither team was taking the contest lightly. The first period opened up with physical play on both ends of the ice, with the USA getting two power play chances in an opening frame that saw Canada mostly control play despite being outshot 11-8 on the scoreboard.

It’s unlikely you’ll see three gold medals handed out in two events at Sochi, but that happened on the slopes Wednesday thanks to a tie in the Women’s Downhill skiing. It was an unlikely finish, but things were a lot more predictable in the Men’s Nordic Combined.

Medal-winning countries were diverse, with five different nations claiming the six medals; something we haven’t seen in Sochi thus far.

For the second straight day at the Olympics, figure skating will be centered around pairs skating events.

So far, only three medals have been handed out in figure skating events. The Russians have a gold, Canada has a silver and the United States has a bronze. The second medal event for figure skating takes place on Wednesday.

Wednesday morning saw downhill skiing return to the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center, but one thing was very different from the men’s competition; two gold medals.

In a sport measured in hundredths-of-a-second, two skiers crossed the line at the exact same moment, resulting in the absence of a silver medal. Tina Maze of Slovenia and Switzerland’s Dominique Gisin each received gold for finishing in 1:41.57. This was the first tie in alpine skiing history at the Winter Olympics.

It’s the biggest day of hockey yet at the 2014 Winter Olympics, as men’s hockey begins with two games in the middle of the afternoon Eastern time on Wednesday.

But that’ll just be dessert: Wednesday’s entree is the highly-anticipated showdown between the two best women’s hockey teams in the world, the United States national team and the Canadian national team.

So far the Norwegians have been dominating the cross-country skiing events at the 2014 Winter Olympics. While it has only picked up one skiing gold medal thus far, Norway has been piling up the medals on the slopes in Sochi.

One would think the Norwegians would continue their success in the Nordic combined skiing events. The normal hill jumping and the 10-kilometer cross-country final will take place early on Wednesday morning.

Day 7 of the 2014 Winter Olympics begins shortly, and Americans will have plenty of intriguing events to watch on live television.

The big headliner of the day is the start of men’s ice hockey, although the teams involved aren’t exactly heavy draws. The Czech Republic and Sweden face off on the USA Network, while Latvia and Switzerland play each other on MSNBC. Both games will be televised at 12 p.m. ET. The women’s side features the hotly anticipated showdown between the USA and Canada, the top two gold medal favorites. That game starts at 7:30 a.m. and can be seen on NBCSN.

Curling continues Wednesday with another spate of round robin matches. The men’s teams start their fourth session at midnight (ET) when Denmark faces the United States. The Americans have had a rough go of things this year, and are still looking for their first win after a 9-4 loss to China on Tuesday. Denmark got into the win column with a hard-fought 11-10 victory over Russia.

Norway’s pants get a lot of attention, but they’re pretty good at curling too, beating the Russians 9-8 to move to 2-0. They will take on Germany after Team USA gets off the ice.