there is. And the fact that teams such as the Maple Leaf

Canada used three third-period goals to rally and beat Team USA 3-2 Wednesday in an Olympic womens hockey preliminary match at Shayba Arena in Sochi, Russia. Meghan Agosta-Marciano celebrated her 27th birthday with two goals, while Hayley Wickenheiser added her second goal of the tournament. "I didnt go out there thinking Im going to score on my birthday," said Agosta-Marciano. "I scored a hat trick at the Torino Olympics in 2006 [on her 19th birthday], but this is a different Olympics with a different team. Theyre all so special. The emotion of scoring doesnt get any better." Hilary Knight and Anne Schleper replied with goals for the U.S. The game lived up to the advanced hype of womens two hockey superpowers put on a thrilling display. It went right down to the wire. Both goaltenders were outstanding. Canadas Charline Labonté made 25 saves, and American Jessie Vetter stopped 28 pucks. Canada snapped a four-game losing streak to the Americans and finished Group A with a perfect 3-0 record. "[The win] felt so good," Labonté told CBC. "Weve been struggling a little bit in the past couple of games against them. Weve worked really hard to readjust and become a better team. They came out really strong as expected so Im really glad that we came up with the win." Both teams advanced to the semifinals. The U.S. finally broke the scoreless deadlock with only 2:26 left in the second period. With the Americans on the power play, Knight redirected a point shot by Schleper behind Labonté. The Canadians replied with a power-play goal of their own at 2:21 into the third period. Wickenheiser fed a beautiful back-hand pass to Agosta-Marciano, who buried a one-timer past Vetter. Canada took a 2-1 lead more than a minute later after some confusion. Vetter stopped Wickenheisers initial shot, but the puck slid under her and across the goal-line as American forward Alex Carpenter tried to tuck the rebound back to her goaltender. The goal was reviewed and confirmed. "There was a whistle and thats why a lot of our girls stopped playing. I mean, in the U.S., we play to the whistle," said Knight. "I dont know if they have audio on the tape but I heard a whistle." Showing her speed, Agosta-Marciano scored the eventual winning goal with less than six minutes remaining in the third. The 27-year-old grabbed a loose puck at her own blue-line and raced in on a breakaway before beating Vetter. Schleper made things interesting following her blast by Labonté with 1:05 remaining, but Canada killed off a too-many-men on the ice penalty in the final minute for the victory. Nike Shoes China . "Right now were kind of looking at him at the end of the rotation right now," said pitching coach Pete Walker. "Not indicative of how hes doing or how hes feeling. Its just, it seems like the spot we want him right now. Fake Nike Shoes . "It was a little weird looking over and seeing all the green uniforms," he said of his first game against the Boston Celtics. https://www.nikeshoeschina.us/ .Currently no, Tatjana Haenni, FIFAs deputy director of the competitions division and head of womens competitions, said Tuesday in an interview from Ottawa. Nike Shoes From China Outlet .com) - James Harden had 32 points, including a tying layup late in regulation, and the Houston Rockets scored eight of their 13 points in overtime at the foul line to beat the Memphis Grizzlies 117-111 on Friday night. Clearance Nike Shoes From China . Vonn punctuated her near-perfect season in perfect fashion Friday, earning her fourth overall World Cup title with a dominating giant slalom victory.Over the past couple of decades, weve heard repeatedly that the days of the hockey goon were numbered. First it was the dreaded instigator penalty that was going to make them extinct. Then it was the new rules coming out of the lockout, the end of clutching and grabbing and the premium on skill and players who could skate. And yet for all the talk that there was no room left in the game for one dimensional players whose only asset was their ability to fight, there were still lots of one dimensional players in the game whose only asset was their ability to fight. Please step forward John Scott and George Parros, to name just two obvious examples. Now it seems that weve reached another turning point in the debate about the role of enforcers. And this one is framed differently. Its not an ethical question about whether fighting belongs in the game. Its not related to concussions and the obvious safety issues that come with players beating each other in the head with their fists. Its not a debate about whether - in todays NHL - you need enforcers the way you once did. Its now a question of whether teams can afford to carry players who have limited ability to possess the puck, cant keep up with the game and have no offensive or defensive upside that would give them any sort of advantage. In other words, do whatever benefits exist from having fighters on the roster overcome the liability of dressing players who would not be playing in the NHL if they couldnt fight? And heres where the analytics side of the game makes things interesting. Advocates of the role of fighting in hockey have always relied on an argument built on strrategic intangibles, the notion that skilled players feel protected when enforcers are in the lineup, that somehow everyone plays an inch taller just knowing that kind of guy is sitting on the end of the bench, even if he only plays a few minutes a night.dddddddddddd Whether or not any of that was actually true became a matter of hockey ideology, depending on which camp you fell into. But there was no reliable way to actually measure or test that theory. Presumably, through the introduction of analytics into the game, now there is. And the fact that teams such as the Maple Leafs and Philadelphia Flyers (huh?) will be begin the season without enforcers, suggests that what teams are learning is that enforcers dont help teams win games and are in fact liabilities. That when the other team can roll four lines of players with hockey skills and your team cant, thats probably not a good thing. And that in todays NHL where teams tend to be clustered so closely in the standings in the battle for playoff spots, teams simply cant afford to give away games just to a€“ quote a€“ send a message. Of course, like many things where analytics are concerned, we shouldnt have needed data to tell us this. The fact that NHL teams put enforcers in the press box at playoff time and that the teams which wind up competing for the Stanley Cup each year are those that can roll four lines were dead giveaways. But if it took hockey embracing analytics to arrive at what should have been obvious all along, then so be it. It turns out hockey enforcers - who are always game for a fight against the oppositions enforcer - may be no match for the nerds. ' ' '