Around the Hockey World

     A few days ago we took a look at the opening of the first Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, France. Today we look at International Hockey with most of it provided by the Olympics. We start on January 29, 1924 just a few days after the Winter Olympics first opened. In one game Canada, the early Olympic powerhouse mangling the Swedish team by a score of 22-0. The Canadians scored 10 goals in the third period alone. It was a record loss for the Swedes. On the very same day the British team treated their hosts very rudely by giving them a 15-2 beating.

  On January 29, 1956 in the Winter Olympic games in Italy, the Soviet team beat the Swiss team by a score of 10-3. this was no where near the record beating of those games as just two days before the Canadians beat the Austrians 23-0. It was the Soviet team however that won the gold metal in the tournament, their first of many to come. The Canadians finished in third, receiving the bronze metal.

    The 1964 games brought us plenty of highlights of its own. On January 29 the Czechoslovakians beat the Germans by a score of 11-1. Both clubs advanced to the metal round with the Czechoslovakians takaing the Bronze metal and the Germans taking 7th place.

  Just to prove the high scoring in ice hockey is not restricted to the Olympics we saved the best for last. we go to the 2007 Asian Games at Chungchan, China. The team from Kazakhstan scored 17 goals against the team from Thailand. The biggest problem from the Thai bench was the Kazakhs held a 17-0 lead after 20 minutes. The second period was not any better as the Kazakhs scored 20 more goals. The Thais must have felt some joy when they scored a single goal in the third period, while holding the Kazakhs to only 15 goals in the period. The score 52-1 score produced record results for both countries. The Kazaks finished the first round with a two game score of 90-1. They did not however save enough goals for their game with the eventual champions, the Japanese beat them by a score of 3-2. Giving equal opportunity to the women, on that same day, the Japanese women beat the South Koreans by a score of 29-0. The Japanese used a 12 goal first period and an 11 goal third period for the rout. The South Koreans gave up a total of 68 goals without netting a single goal for themselves.As with the men this game produced record results for both countries.     

   After all this Hockey we will look at one of the more important minor league baseballs most important leagues in the US Midwest during the first 60 years of the 20th century tomorrow.