The Sochi Olympics come to a head this weekend with the finals of the men’s ice hockey tournament, and you can follow all the betting excitement at William Hill.
Friday, 21 February, 2014 sees a semifinal match between Nordic rivals Finland and Sweden, and in the other game, Canada and the USA face off in a North American derby match.
The losers of these matches will go through to the bronze medal match on Saturday, while the winners will meet in a true clash of the titans on Sunday.
It’s going to be a close call either way as to who wins which match on Friday, with all the teams having appeared in recent Olympic finals.
The gold medal match at the 2010 Vancouver Games was a closely fought match between the USA and Canada, who won 3-2 after overtime.
Finland and Sweden faced each other at the Torino Games in 2006, which also had a very close result, with Sweden beating their eastern neighbors 3-2.
However, past victories are no guarantee of future success, and nowhere is this truer than in sport. Today’s ice hockey matches will be close games. There is no clear favorite in the North American derby match, while in the Nordic tussle, Sweden seem to be slight favorites to win.
Either way, though, it will be a match to follow. Home team and tournament favorites Russia were eliminated in the quarterfinals by Finland, so although they go into this match as the underdogs, there’s still a lot of fight in these pups.
At Casino Daily News, we’re predicting close matches today, but in the end, we reckon we will have a Finland-USA final on Sunday. Finland have a great defensive game, and showed effective counterattacks against Russia. They also have the best goaltender in the tournament in the form of Tuukka Rask, who plies his trade with the Boston Bruins.
However, the USA are no slouches, having dominated their quarterfinal match against 2006 bronze medalists the Czech Republic. The Americans have had the most solid and connected defensive and offensive game of the Olympics so far.
If you are as excited about the match as we are, head on over to William Hill, where you can place bets on all the matches. Sweden face off against Finland at 13:00 CET, and the USA meet Canada at 18:00 CET.
