U.S. Hockey

The U.S. came into the quarterfinals as the #1 seed in the Hockey tournament after beating Canada 5-3 in a great game that rounded out the preliminaries. Not sure whether it was tightness or overconfidence but the U.S. looked tight during their quarterfinal match against Switzerland.But Zach Parise put all that frustration aside, deflecting a wrist shot from Brian Rafalski early in the third period. He then scored into an empty net to seal a 2-0 quarterfinal win that sends the U.S. to Friday's semifinals against Finland, which beat the Czech Republic 2-0.

"The goalie was great and we did a good job of sticking with it. We were pretty confident and said just keep putting pucks at him," said Parise, who failed to score on his first 13 shots of the tournament.

Ryan Miller made 19 saves to backstop the victory and move the Americans within two wins of their first men's hockey gold medal in 30 years.

Shaun White

All about Shaun White:

Shaun just took down GOLD for the Americans in the Men's Halfpipe yesterday in snowboarding. He is the most popular American at these winter olympics because of his flaming hair, absurd tricks and outgoing personality. He is something that few athletes are: a creator. He doesn't just perfect tricks that those who came before him created, he makes up new tricks that no one has ever done and then perfects those. He is so far ahead in his sport that in a recent 60 minutes interview it was revealed that he hardly hangs out with any other snowboarders on the professional and olympic circuit because they hold a grudge against him for being so good. I created a Jing to help you navigate his official site and showed the video that i found the coolest.

http://screencast.com/t/MTRhN2Q3M2I

and here's the link to his site: http://www.shaunwhite.com/

here's a couple more ways you can follow shaun:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Shaun_White

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShaunWhite

Cool Runnings

Since this blog is focused on the history of the games, I would be remiss if I didn't include the Men's bobsled team from Jamaica in 1988. They were inspiring to millions and even inspired a movie. Truly one of the great stories in the history of the games. Here is a closer look at the men that were involved:

1 Devon Harris

After failing to qualify for the LA Games in '84, middle-distance runner Harris joined the Jamaican army and there, in 1987, saw an advert for "dangerous and rigorous" trials to choose the nation's first Olympic bobsledders. The idea seemed ridiculous, "but I tried my darndest and made the team", says Harris, who had found a way to become an Olympian after all – as well as a new passion. He went on to alternate between bobsledding and army life for the next decade, before retiring to write a children's book. Now 45, he is a writer and motivational speaker.

2 Chris Stokes

Despite hurried training that involved jogging on a frozen lake, the team were so unused to running on ice that one of them, Caswell Allen, slipped and was injured just a week before the Olympics. A new member was quickly drafted – Chris Stokes, present in Calgary simply to cheer on his brother Dudley. He had never seen a bobsled before. "We taught him everything we knew about it," Harris tells OSM. "Then we began the event three days later..." Stokes competed in four Winter Olympics, led the Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation and is now a finance manager.

3 Dudley Stokes

After a terrible Olympic debut – a push-bar collapsed while driver Dudley was hopping in – the second day of competition brought improvement, and Team Jamaica recorded its best ever start, the seventh fastest in Calgary that year. Unused to the speed, however, Dudley – a Sandhurst-trained army captain who is still involved with Jamaican bobsled today – lost control. "There was simply no wall left," says Harris, "and there was only one thing left for us to do. Crash." The sled, travelling at 85mph, upturned with the team underneath. It was the end of their Olympics.

4 Michael White

A radio operator and private in the army reserves, brakeman White was one of the first to be selected for the team, and also competed in the two-man bobsled with Dudley in 1988. Like his three team-mates, White went on to compete at the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France in 1992; he now lives in New York and works in retail. Jamaica, meanwhile, has sustained its bobsled programme to this day, the team overseen now by the Stokes brothers. It will return to Canadian ice at the Vancouver Olympics this month, alongside a Jamaican ski team.

5 Pat Brown

Team coach Brown (now a bobsled instructor at Utah Olympic Park) was played by John Candy in the 1994 film based on this story, Cool Runnings. "Loosely based," Harris stresses. "We didn't experience any animosity from other teams as depicted in the movie. One of the East Germans smiled at me and gave me a badge." And the film's rousing climax, in which the team hold their crashed sled aloft to carry it over the finish line, was also a fiction. "We did what any team would have done," says Harris. "We pushed it to the end of the track before lifting it off."