smoothskater said:
Believe me that I knew all along that Finland will meet with Canada in the final.
Wa...? Before the tourney I scoured the net trying to find non-Finns who thought Finland would be in the final, and found nobody who thought they would go all that way only to lose in the end.
Except me.
Here's evidence of my pre-tourney prediction,
Canada wins 4-1 over Finland in the Final, along with extended reasoning as to why.
Just scroll down to the 6th post, dated August 30th:
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=20750&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45
Smoothskater, okay, I admit you might be one of the very small minority who thought likewise. But it's hard to believe because, of over 75,000 who voted in the nhl.com poll before the tourney, under 2% chose Finland to go all the way, and I suspect that most of those were Finns.
Slovakia was the overhyped "longshot" pick; the Swedes and Americans were given a lot of credit for aged star forwards despite the lack of goaltending, I mean, obvious lack. Russia was considered talented but unorganized, yet suddenly received a bandwagon of supporters after the first few games of the tourney, as did Finland after a great start.
The Finns are NOT lucky to be in the final, NO luckier than Canada (and arguably less so). Finland played their game, and did it well. They deserve to be there. Having enough role players is more important than assembling an all-star team, as Canada learned in putting together this year's team.