Cnd-Guy said:
Someone please explain to me how the Czechs could have outplayed Canada , if Canada won ? I don't get it
Ah. Well, you see, the point of *playing* is to *win*. So, when one team *wins* they've *outplayed* the other team.
Now, when someone says that "the Czechs outplayed Canada, but Canada won", they're just doing the obvious - grading everything but the goaltending. The Czechs badly outshot us, so they must have outplayed us. That is, the sum total effort from nineteen of their players seems to have been better than that of nineteen of our players. (Ignoring, for a moment, that we outscored them.)
You hear this all the time - from sportscasters to players. In some sense, this is the most obvious thing to comment on - the players are the ones carrying the puck, generating offense, skating around. Most coaches are involved with this aspect of the game almost exclusively - it's the goaltending coaches job to deal with that strange art of protecting the twine tent. Obviously (perhaps), the goaltender is always *trying* - sometimes he just has a bad game. This benefit of the doubt is almost *never* extended to the skaters - who, if they are badly outshot, must have been *outplayed* - probably, because they weren't hustling enough, or didn't have the "will" to win the game.
In fact, the whole term, as it's used in general parlance, really just means "outshot". Try substituting that word for "outplayed" whenever you hear it, and I guarantee the results will be 100% accurate.
"The Czechs outplayed Canada" = "The Czechs outshot Canada"
This is useful in and of itself, but as anyone who thinks about it for five seconds or so could tell you, the point of the game isn't to "outshoot" your opponents, but to *score more*. To this end, the players on the ice contribute many things - shots, certainly, but also passes, defense, forechecking, backchecking - oh, all kinds of things - and, yes, *goaltending*.
When you look at the sum totals of the contributions of the *twenty* players on both teams, I think the only reasonable conclusion is that our *twenty* players played better as a whole than their *twenty* players.
Ergo, Canada outplayed the Czechs.
No, we didn't *outshoot* them, but we definitely *outplayed* them. And that's why we're playing on Tuesday.
LOL
I love you guys.
(Hey, sorry Goober - *I* didn't bring it up ... LOL ......)