Canada and Austria are going up against each other on Friday in the men's hockey tournament competition at the Olympics and the Group B preliminary round game starts up at 12 pm Noon on the USA Network and is streaming online from the NBCOlympics.com website and comes after the Canadian team opened their games with a win and they are looking for their second gold medal in a row.
The Canadian team won over the United States at the Vancouver Olympics for the gold medal and Sidney Crosby is leading the way and they are one of the favorites to win the gold along with the US. Carey Price got his Olympic debut in the first game as the starter and Roberto Luongo, the hero from the 2010 games, will be in net for game two and the team is looking to go undefeated in group play and that is a possibility. Price played very well and made 19 saves as he made his Olympics debut and both Shea Weber and Jamie Benn scored to help the team win 3-1.
Mike Smith is coming in as the backup for Luongo in the next game and this is the way that coach Mike Babcock wants to do things, while the US team started Jonathan Quick and Ryan Miller is serving his backup. The Canadians won over Norway and now play against Austria before their last matchup over the weekend against Finland and all of those games are on USA and the playoff round starts up next week. The top four teams get byes and both Canada and the United States are looking to be one of those teams and the qualification round starts up on Tuesday.
Luongo is expected to have a good game over Austria and the hardest matchup for Canada is against Finland and that is a gem to watch heading into the next round. The United States opened up their games with seven goals and the last time Canada played against Norway, they shut them out with eight goals and this one was a bit more subdued, but it was never in doubt for the Canadians. The team started off slow and that is to be expected for teams in their first game after the NHL break. Canada is expecting to be one of the four teams with a bye heading into the next round
