Open Thread – Sochi Olympic Spoilers – 2/19

Submitted by MGoGrendel on

S-O-S!! Spoiler results are posted here

 

ALERT– I called your boss.  He said you should leave early for lunch so you can get a good table to watch the hockey game! 

Some of today’s events:

  • Men’s Hockey Playoffs – USA v. CZE and CAN v. LAT both at 12:00 (EST). FIN v. RUS at 7:30 am and SWE v. SLO already complete.
  • Parallel Giant Slalom– think long snowboard on an alpine ski slalom course
  • Curling Playoffs– Men’s and Women’s Semifinals
  • Women’s Bobsled* – United States 1 and United States 2 in position for medals.

*Today's Bobslead events are brought to you by the letters B, M, and W.

  

Your moment of Zen: Linn Githmark of Norway; Curling

Norway is not in the semifinals today, so Linn has some free time on her hands…

 

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Linn Githmark

Bronco648

February 19th, 2014 at 8:31 AM ^

Where the hell is Ford and GM (especially GM after their gov't bailout)? Chrysler doesn't get included anymore, they're Italian. Why on earth would those two auto manufacturers allow BMW to come in and design a bobsled for team USA? Pretty sad IMO.

Joined: 08/20/2008

MGoPoints: 2644

gwkrlghl

February 19th, 2014 at 11:56 AM ^

Maybe BMW designs a better bobsled. Maybe Ford and GM didn't want to be involved. Should we run a crappier bobsled to 15th place while pumping our fists and chanting "U-S-A!" the whole way down?

And it is BMW USA after all. It's not like every Ford and GM operation is in the US

Joined: 04/13/2012

MGoPoints: 72

Princetonwolverine

February 19th, 2014 at 9:22 AM ^

The Olympics need more events like the Snowboard Cross. Nothing better than watching the people in last place zoom past people who have wiped each other out.

It would really spice of figure skating if they all had to compete at the SAME time.

Joined: 10/10/2010

MGoPoints: 14174

Trebor

February 19th, 2014 at 9:53 AM ^

I hope that game ruins the psyche of Malkin and Ovechkin for the rest of this season. Those two played like garbage the whole tournament except the first 5 minutes against Slovenia in the first game.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 4573

LSAClassOf2000

February 19th, 2014 at 10:31 AM ^

For those interested, ESPN has the boxscore up for the Russia-Finland game - the things that rather stands out here is that Russia took 38 shots on goal to Finland's 22. I was watching with the volume low, so I didn't catch the numbers being mentioned as the game progressed, but that's a considerable margin. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130636

readyourguard

February 19th, 2014 at 11:33 AM ^

I have another Curling question:

This morning in the Canada vs Great Britain womens contest, Canada had one in the house, with GB having last rock to shoot.  Instead of trying to put one closer to the button, GB wipes Canada's rock AND THEIR OWN out of the house.  Nobody had a stone remaining in the house, resulting in a tie.

Why wouldn't GB try to put one closer to the button and gain a point in that scenario?

Joined: 08/21/2008

MGoPoints: 40986

Yeoman

February 19th, 2014 at 10:25 PM ^

I was going to share this anyway--it's why I logged into the site tonight:

http://curlwithmath.blogspot.com/2008/11/statistics-for-womens-curling-…

He's (well, actually they come from curlingzone.com) got stats from years of high-level matches (back to the beginning of the free-guard-zone era) for the likelihood of winning when you're x up with/without the hammer with y ends remaining. For men and women both--they're slightly different, men are more accurate throwing big weight so it's harder it men's play to get big ends.

I don't know what end it was in your example, but say it was the fifth; then you've got two choices:

1. Hit and stick, and take one point. Then you're down one without the hammer. With five ends to go your odds of winning are 22.1%.

2. Hit and roll out, blanking the end. They you're down two with the hammer. With five ends to go your odds of winning are 24.2%.

As a general rule, blanking is pretty much always slightly better than taking one with the hammer, improving your odds by 1-3% depending on score and end (there are some exceptions, like if you're way behind in the last few ends). I was surprised today when Scotland decided to take one in the 8th instead of blanking. But I suppose with such tiny differences as these the specifics of ice and the particular strengths/weaknesses of the two teams could easily flip the right play.

Mostly I just wanted to share that website. Anyone that's come to like curling and enjoys this blog will probably like the approach there.

 

 

Joined: 06/08/2011

MGoPoints: 21390

gbdub

February 19th, 2014 at 12:27 PM ^

Throwing the last rock in an end, known as "having the hammer" or "having last rock" is a major advantage, for obvious reasons. It's usually very difficult to score without the hammer (referred to as a "steal"), and it's generally accepted that scoring 1 point with the hammer is "easy" in a well played end. Basically, think of 1 point with the hammer as "par" - the team with the hammer will attempt to score 2 or more, and the team without will try to make them score one or less.

For the first end, hammer is usually assigned by coin flip. After that, it switches every time the team with the hammer scores (but does not switch if no points are scored or if the other team "steals" any points). So scoring exactly one point can actually be a disadvantage: you lose the hammer, giving the other team a great chance to score in the next end.

For that reason, if a team can't score two or more points with the hammer, they may do exactly what you saw: "blank" the end for a score of zero, giving up an easy point but preserving the hammer for a better chance to score in the next end.

A really common time for this would be if, say, you were down by 2 in the 9th (second to last) end. Scoring 1 does you little good: you give the hammer to the other team, forcing you to steal at least one point in the last end. Blanking the 9th end gives you a much better shot to score multiple points in the last end, since you'll keep the hammer.

Joined: 02/16/2010

MGoPoints: 26761