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Winter Olympics 2014 Women’s Hockey: Team USA obliterates Sweden

First Period

With Sweden facing Team USA in the semifinals, you had to wonder if there was any possibility of a repeat of the 2006 Olympics in Turin, but… No.

It took all of a few seconds into the USA’s first powerplay for Megan Bozek to swing around behind the net and find an uncovered Alex Carpenter, who rang a shot off of Emelia Andersson and past Valentina Wallner, with Hillary Knight causing havoc in the crease.

The Swedes argued that the play should have been whistled down, but there was no dice there.

A minute and six seconds later a seeing eye shot from Kacey Bellamy beat Wallner from way out, with Swedish screens preventing Wallner from picking up the puck at all.

Undisciplined play from Sweden followed, as they couldn’t cope with Team USA’s speed, continuing the ridiculous domination by the Americans. Putting themselves down two women, the Swedes did a reasonable job killing the penalties, but as the second penalty expired, Amanda Kessel jumped on a rebound on the goalmouth to make it 3-0.

Completely rattled, Sweden called a timeout.

When the Americans finally made a slight mistake, with Michelle Picard taking a hooking penalty, the shots were 26-0 for the United States, with 8:27 remaining in the first period. When Sweden finally forced Jessie Vetter to make a single save, shots were 27-1.

Second Period

The American domination continued in the second with Monique Lamoureux striking 5:41 in with an assist from her sister Jocelyn, followed by Megan Bozek notching her first of the tournament. After Bozek scored, the Swedes started to look ahead to the bronze medal game and pulled Wallner, mercifully, and put Kim Martin Hasson in goal.

The score can’t even capture how badly the Americans dominated this game. The shots were 51-6 after two periods, and Sweden had just as much time on the powerplay.

Third Period

In the third period the Americans began to let their foot off the gas pedal a little bit, not fighting for pucks as vigorously and allowing the Swedes to win a couple of faceoffs. Eventually that led to a deflection by Anna Borgqvist that fooled Jessie Vetter and got Sweden on the board on their eighth shot of the game.

Stunned a bit by the goal, Team USA began to push the tempo up again, and the Swedes couldn’t handle it. Jocelyn Lamoureux hustled her way into a penalty shot, and although she pulled a fantastic spinorama, she couldn’t beat Martin Hasson.

Eventually though, Brianna Decker would wire a shot off the post that bounced off of a Swedish defender’s shin pads and into the net to make it 6-1.

That would be the end of the scoring in the game, with the United States ending up with a 70-9 shot advantage in the most dominant performance of the tournament so far.

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