Figure skating: Noramlly, I'm not a fan of sports or events where the winners and outcome are dictated by a panel of judges, but apparently a whole lot of Asians disagree with me. Trading on Asia's top two exchanges ground to a halt earlier this week so that traders on the floors of both Seoul's Korea Exchange and Japan's Nikkei could watch performances in women's figure skating by Japan's Mao Asada and South Korea's Kim Yu Na. The only significant movement that trading session came from Korean sports-marketing firm IB sports [KSX: 011420], which represents Yu Na among others. Yu Na's James Bond-themed performance on Febuary 23rd earned higher marks that Asada's program and Yu Na would go on to win the gold in women's figure skating on Thursday. This would be South Korea's first Winter Olympic medal in a sport other than speed skating. 
(Andrew Mills/Star-Ledger)Woman's Hockey: To hardly anybody's surprise, it was USA versus Canada for the gold, with the Canadian women's team shutting out the USA 2-0. However, it did not end there. Bound and determined to lock up the 'Buzzkills of the year' title early, the IOC sharply criticized the gold medal winners for smoking cigars and drinking beer and champagne while taking a victory lap after the medals were awarded and the fans had left the arena.
Men's Hockey: Good God, I sure took my sweet time updating this, didn't I? Well, the match that most people thought would be the gold medal matchup actually took place as early as the quarterfinals- Russia vs Canada. However, it did NOT live up to it's billing as the host country simply demolished the Russians 7-3 to advance to the semifinals against Slovakia, where they won a much closer game against the Slovaks 3-2.
Elsewhere, Team USA scored late and not necessarily often, but often enough to get by the Swiss 2-0 on Wednesday and advance to the semifinals where they manhandled Finland by a final of 6-1. This set up a Bronze medal game between the Finns and Slovaks that was played Saturday with the Finns rallying to get past the plucky Slovaks 5-3. I have to say that as fun as the Slovaks were to watch, I'm a little disappointed they couldn't do any better than 4th place.
Of course, I would be derelict in my sportsfan/sports-blogger duties if I neglected to mention that Finland and Slovakia's loss sets up a gold medal game between the USA and Canada on Sunday. To say 'I'm looking forward to it' is the understatement of this young 2010, and I honestly couldn't tell you who I think is going to win. Canada looked unstoppable against Russia, but at times, complacent and beatable against the Slovaks. Ever since pool play ended, USA and Canada haven't had any common opponents (USA had the Swiss and Finns while Canada had Germany, Russia and Slovakia). While I can't dismiss things like playing to the home crowd and avenging last week's loss, I think USA does have momentum on their side and nowhere near as much pressure to worry about, since very few thought they'd get this far in the first place. But stop and think about it.....the absolute worst case scenario facing the USA men's hockey team at the moment is 'settling' for silver when they were a longshot to be in contention for a medal in the first place. That said, no reason to let up now......gold is all the rage this year. (Go USA!)
Bobsled: Team USA broke a 62 year drought by winning the gold in the 4-man bobsled event Saturday. Steven Holcomb, Justin Olsen, Steve Mesler and Curtis Tomasevicz piloted the winning sled through the Whistler course in 3 minutes, 24.46 seconds.
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