It was a promising first half for the Croatian cowboys as they went into halftime up two goals on host nation Denmark in the Euro handball championship semifinal. But it wasn’t meant to be as a slow start to the second half cost Croatia the lead, which they would never again regain Friday night. The Cowboys will now face Spain on Sunday for third place, who lost to France in the other semifinal.
More to come from this match later in the day.
i THINK it was strinic but im not positive
This Canadian/American and rest of the world argument is good, but no other country and can make a C or D team like Canada could and still have a shot at gold.
With that being said, its the only the “best” team that is selected and thats that… I’m sure Brazil could challenge with a “B” team for world cup
Canada’s defence is fine. Luongo will be fine… He just came back from injury but for sure had some good rest and has been on his game for most of the season. This was probably one of his better starts to the season in a long while
He has notoriously slow starts
I’m a former goalie and have a good grasp at the position… but yes guy like Quick plays for me a fundamentally better and cleaner game, with that being said its about stopping the damn puck… Hasek didn’t do anything “by the book”
Should be a good tournament. What I like about international hockey is that there is 4-5 teams that really have a legit shot at the Gold, I forget how many teams are entered but its not like say world cup where you get a lot of second rate garbage coming in, and before Ziva says it WE ARE NOT second rate!!!
Nice video Iggy, fuck that was a blast from your boy lovren and also a beauty from that setpiece rakitic macedonia game.. why can’t we get a just a bit more of that
Fuck who was it that headed it the Belgium player in that first game for their goal… holy that couldn’t have been a better pass if he was trying
i read half of your post before i puked, ziva,
i dont normally have an issue with u but that post really was garbage. Complete and utter garbage.
Only other defense man in the that would even make the CDN team would be Suter, by far and away the best blue line in the world. Only thing that will stop Canada is a hot goalie like Hasak in 98.
It’s my youtube avatar, ive had it for ages..
i make hrvatska videos u so and so
like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRRI-9YPhIc
Shove that one up your so and so u so and so !
What’s with that avatar Iggy?
Aussies don’t wear toques and scarves do they?
Stop typing so much – i cant read through it all
but anyway, i certainly remember goran due to that tiny little title he won in 2001 v rafter.. dunno about others but im sure it’s similiar ?
^ ^
Ha! Maybe you’re right 🙂
It may be the greatest “result” but the greatest games in terms of entertainment, speed, and skill… Gotta go with Canada/Russia ’87
For me, crushing communists! Easily.
What’s more exciting, a bunch of amateurs, and communists that no ones ever heard of playing each other. Or who’s who of Hall of Famers playing 3 straight 6-5 hockey games? First 2 games decided in overtime and the 3rd game in the last minute.
Game 2 is widely considered to be the greatest hockey game ever played.
Maybe not to NBC though…
^ ^
Yankee propaganda!
The Russians took you guys lightly and Canada was still the best in the world then.
Not a chance. Miracle on Ice by a landslide. College kids vs the best hockey team in the world. 4-3. I wish I was alive when it happened. I’d still be drunk.
3 seconds left on the clock…Do you believe in miracles?!? YES!
^ ^
I’ll never forget his epic collapse at the World Juniors in the 3rd period of the gold medal game against the States.
@Colin
Fleury’s streakier than a pair of soiled undies!
Blackhawks are full of Canadians!
Keith, Toews, Sharp, Seabrook, Crawford, and a bunch of their lesser knowns who bring a ton of character to the team.
Problem with the Euro players around the league is if they’re not scoring they’re really not doing anything else…
@Colin
I don’t blame you for not wanting Stamkos rushed back. I sympathised with the Lightning as soon as I heard how they were gonna try to have him ready for Sochi.
Goaltending seems to always be an issue for us.
Roy is an ass-clown who wouldn’t play in ’98 if he wasn’t named the starter, and thank god he wasn’t cuz i’ve always thought he sucked!
Brodeur lost his spot to Luongo in 2012 and Luongo really didn’t have to play that well.
America always has good goaltending though.
I’d probably take Quick or Miller over any Canadian goalie.
Not really a Luongo fan.
I blame him for lighting a fire under the Bruins asses with those “pumping his tires” and “it would have been a routine save for me” remarks to Tim Thomas.
We’re up 3 games to 2 in the finals, he goes and opens his mouth and we go on to lose the next 2 games.
Who does that?!!
Thanks a lot Bobby Lou…
Def true with the Red Wings Colin, and to a lesser extent the Blackhawks.
Both those teams Coaches / GM’s are also Canadians too though ; )
ANd Poglavnic – No offense to Canada, but I hope Stamkos doesn’t set foot on the ice. If he’s not ready to play and ruins his chances playing with my Lightning again this year… gon’ be upset. Plus, I sure as hell don’t want to have to face a team with him on it.
It’s strange to think that goalteanding could be a problem. Luongo has always been a top guy for you guys, but I guess when you’re still use to guys like Brodeur and Roy, anybody will be a downgrade. And how is Fleury not called up for Canada???
Was watching TSN yesterday (I know, it’s Canadian!) and they had the top 10 draft prospects for this year. 8 were Canadian, 1 Fin, and 1 German.
We just don’t stop up here!
Speed and finesse are what Duncan Keith is all about!
I hate the Blackhawks but Keith is as smooth a skater as Neidermayer or Coffey were in their day.
Majstore – Partially true. Look at teams like Detroit and Chicago. Both have less than half of their players from Canada, especially Detroit. They have like five. You can’t count out the Euro players.
@Colin
Actually Bouwmeester, Pietrangelo, and Hamhuis worry me a bit.
I couldn’t name 3 better defenseman than Keith, Weber, and Doughty though.
@Colin
@Ante B
According to you guys…
Most of the hockey world couldn’t name one Yank on that team.
I’d say the 3 greatest games in international hockey history would be Canada/Russia 1987.
All 3 games finishing 6-5.
Lemieux and Gretzky on the same line and at the height of high scoring, offensive hockey.
Maybe with the exception of Subban and Bowmiester, the defense is lacking speed and finesse. That’s going to hurt when playing quicker teams like Sweden and Russia. There is no shortage of size with the defenders for Canada, but at the same time, there isn’t as much physical presence as you would expect with guys that size (maybe except Suban, Kieth, and Weber, but Weber is just going to rack up penalty minutes when he’s out on the ice. )
Colin, it doesn’t really matter who wins the cup, the majority of players on any given NHL team are Canadian anyways. It’s not like a team made up of predominantly Americans has or ever will win the Cup.
As far as the gold medal goes, I hope Canada loses. Yeah I said it, fuck Canada. Fuck the USA too though ; )
I’d like to see the Swedes take it, wouldn’t even mind if the Russians won.
@Colin
What was our reaction?
Complete jubilation?
I’ve never seen such happiness in the streets…
@Colin
Fuck don’t even get me started on that shit…
We haven’t won a Stanley Cup since ’93, yet all six of our teams have better support than any American cities teams!
I honestly think Bettman favours the shitty American markets over any Canadian market because he knows there is no threat of us not supporting our teams.
Since ’93 we’ve had 4 Canadian teams make the finals and all 4 lost in game 7.
Absolute bullshit!
Also, it’s on our side of the border every summer when all the Canadian kids on the American teams bring it up here. 🙂
As for our chances in Sochi,
Goaltending is definitely our weakness.
I’m not worried about the other positions.
Having a healthy Stamkos could be huge too.
If he plays, I think he’ll be great!
I called it. I hate to say it but the numbers don’t lie.
But still for a country as small as ours we’re the fucking best.
.
@Colin, how is the defense lacking, Subban won the Norris and is the 7th/8th defensemen on the team. Agree with you on the goal tending, even if Luongo won the gold in 2012, it is worrying.
Ziva – Remember Canada’s reaction in Vancouver when they WON the gold?? Can’t wait to see what happens when they lose it.
^ ^
It’s gold or bust every year!
@JP – Canada’s scoring power is unmatched, but their defense is lacking in a lot of places. I’m also not real confident in their goal tending this time around. Teams like Russia and Sweden are going to be able to find holes in the Canada defense.
Tell me Poglavnik, when was the last time the Cup was on your side of the boarder? 😉
Don’t forget basketball either.
In terms of hockey, the greatest game in history was the Miracle on Ice.
I’ll be rooting for the Russians only so I can see what type of celebration Ovechkin will have in mind.
Then again, watching Russia implode on home ice would be great as well.
Question for the Canadians…….If your hockey team were to not get a gold medal or even not medal, what would the reaction be in Canada. Would you guys beat your wives/girlfriends, cry in public, not be able to function for a few days???/ On a scale of 1-10, how bad would the implosion and meltdown be.
1 is being so distraught that it would force you guys to listen to Justin Beiber music. 10 being you guys go nuts and go the “American way” and start shooting up schools.
Here in the US, they don’t really get behind any of the national teams during the Olympics. Hell, half the country roots against the basketbnall team in the Olympics.
We’ll see Colin…
Thanks for recognizing that it is our sport!
Much like baseball (yaaaaaawn!) is your sport. 🙂
I t might have been close in Vancouver, but you guys definitely got smashed on YOUR home soil in ’02.
Can’t wait!!
Why wouldn’t Canada expect a gold medal? They can send 4 teams that would compete for it!
Haha. There was NO “smashing” of the Americans in hockey. The Canadians were sweating BULLETS during that game. You almost lost to Yanks in what you call “your own sport.” It only took the greatest player in the game to score an overtime goal to beat us. Congrats, Canada. Don’t expect a gold medal this year!
damn it…
^ ^
I know… 2002 was more of a smashing.
All i know is I’d love a hat-trick of gold medal game wins against you guys this February.
Or beating the Russians on there home soil might be equally satisfying.
I really don’t give a shit about any other matchup than CAN/USA or CAN/RUS.
Poglavnice,
Smashed the Americans in hockey? Come on that’s a little harsh. If you make it to OT against a group of young kids on your home soil, that’s not smashing. It’s a win but in no ways a smash.
good recovery…final 13 minutes should be great.
And here comes the expected downfall for the handball team. Were up 2, with a two-man advtage for 90 seconds and failoed to extend the lead. Now, the Danes are about to take this over and have gone up 3.
I know this may piss some of you off, but I took the money line of Denmark today. I find them to be the better overall team.
“Still, many Canadians were irate with continual references to Michael Johnson as the “world’s fastest man” in the American media;”
I know it’s only wikipedia but it’s in the paragraph that i mentioned.
If you had one just broken the world record in the 100 and had to continually hear someone else called the “fastest man” you’d be pissed too.
i hope i was wrong lets go to finale ajmo lets see this
Again, I fail to see where US media was hyping this. Costas saying what he said was factual, but anyone who has any clue about track and field knew what he said had no merits.
read the parts under “idea & initial reaction.”
We are up by 2 at the half in this game. Which, judging how other games featuring heavyweight encounters have gone, is a bad sign. Seems like the teams that are trailing at the half end up winning these games.
Yeah they were Ziva…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey%E2%80%93Johnson_150-metre_race
Nobody here was ever claiming Michael Johnson was the fastest man on the planet.
You should feel good to be proud when you guys beat the Americans. National pride is a good thing.
Maybe you didn’t hear about it down there, but we definitely report that shit up here.
Much like when Michael Johnson and a lot of American outlets were claiming him to be the fastest man on the planet because he won the 200m and 400m when everyone knows that that title goes to the 100m champ (Donovan Bailey) who went on to whup Johnson’s ass anyway in that 150m exhibition race.
Forgive us, but when a country 1/10 the size of yours, and grossly under-funded when it comes to athletics, beats you guys in anything, we’re pretty proud of it!
What Americans were crying about it? I live in the US and I don’t really recall the Americans making a big deal on the toital amount of golds or medials.
Man, some of you Canadians do have the little stepchild syndrome when it comes to competing against the Americans.
^ ^
Vancouver was gorgeous for those 2 weeks!
I remember lots of sun particularly on the last day when we smashed the Americans for hockey gold and our 14th gold medal!
Of course the Yanks cried about having the most total medals and how thats more important even though it’s always been about winning the most golds.
Typical Americans… 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Winter_Olympics_medal_table
Yep…Vancouver was warm and the funny thing is, we hardly get snow here anyways. It may snow a few days in the year if any…this year it snowed very little, not enough to put on snow tires on your car! now rain???? another story….people get rusty from all the rain we get!
Perkovic in germany today. finally
I saw the episode. 50 billion being paid. I’m sure it will have top notch facilities and everything, but walking around the host city and having no snow is strange. Then again, I think it rained more in Vancouver (in the city) than it snowed back in 2010.
Did you guys watch the Real Sports on Sochi? Billions spent for a Winter Olympics in the warmest part of the country. It’s like playing hockey on Brac or Vis.
Should be interesting in Russia when the Olympics begin in Sochi. So close to Chechnya. Something crazy taking place wouldn’t surprise me.
@Thomas………HRT2
But perhaps a fake
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/putin-duma-speech-sharia-law.shtml
What a boss.
I give Russian president Putin a standing ovation on this speech.
“In Russia live like Russians. Any minority, from anywhere, if it wants to live in Russia , to work and eat in Russia , should speak Russian, and should respect the Russian laws. If they prefer Sharia Law, and live the life of Muslim’s then we advise them to go to those places where that’s the state law. Russia does not need Muslim minorities. Minorities need Russia , and we will not grant them special privileges, or try to change our laws to fit their desires, no matter how loud they yell ‘discrimination’. We will not tolerate disrespect of our Russian culture. We had better learn from the suicides of America , England , Holland and France , if we are to survive as a nation. The Muslims are taking over those countries and they will not take over Russia . The Russian customs and traditions are not compatible with the lack of culture or the primitive ways of Sharia Law and Muslims. When this honorable legislative body thinks of creating new laws, it should have in mind the Russian national interest first, observing that the Muslims Minorities Are Not Russians.”
The politicians in the Duma gave Putin a five minute standing ovation.
Which Croatian TV channel will broadcast tonight’s match? Thanks for the help!
I never said Goran wasn’t funny. He is. I wasn’t trashing Goran. I was adding some contect to his career. If I wanted to trash Goran I would talk about his personal life with his wife and the lack of love and committment those to have for each other. But, I won’t go that route.
So what if I point out the truth on some topics or individuals related to their play. How about this? Don’t read my comments. Take the approach I do whenever I see HAET commenting on anything. I just ignore it.
I can already see where this is going. I don’t want to hijack the site and have this turn into a “against Ziva Istina day”, especially today as we prepare to watch the handball team. I have to get the fortified basement ready for the guys coming over to watch the match.
If you want to engage in such activity, may I suggest you do so through twitter. I have yet to fully embrace twitter, but you can reach me in a one-on-one exchnage via that platform at: @ziva-istina.
I’ve been reading this site for many months and every single time you open your mouth, Živa, I’ve let it go, but ffs dude. For all of our sakes, stop being such a negative nancy about every single Croatian athlete in every sport. You are not a realist, nor do you point out the truth. You focus on the negative, often unrelated to what’s even being talked about. Iggy mentions how Goran is still funny. Instead of just agreeing you have to drag his achievements, or lack thereof, into the dirt. News flash! Iggy’s comment had nothing to do with Goran’s tennis prowess, but you can’t let an opportunity to trash yet another one of our athletes go. That would be too much to ask. Has mama Istina never told you that if you have nothing nice to say, to not say anything at all?
You’re too set in your ways at this point, and that’s fine, just please spare us from your Croat thrashing. We’re all pretty tired of it by now.
Everyone else, please don’t respond to this with the usual “he makes good points every once in a while” or “he brings things into perspective.” Spew enough criticism out and you’ll get things right from time to time.
You know what would be your ideal profession, Živa? An analyzer of precious stones like diamonds. Even though they’re amazing and worth thousands your job would be to point out all their flaws like color and brilliance instead of focus on their strengths.
Euro qualifying is going to blow. First and second place automatically advance and then the third place teams go into a playoff.
Group I
BiH
Croatia
Serbia/Slovenia
Montenegro
Macedonia
Pots announced for EURO qualifying draw
We are in Pot 2.
http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/finals/news/newsid=2036613.html#pots+announced+euro+qualifying+draw
era….not area. god damn ipad.
Depends how you view it. Winning one grand slam in an era when everything was short rallies and first serves is kind of unremarkable when you consider the service game that he had and how high he was ranked all those years.
One of the most entertaining players in his era, great personality, but to me he will always be considered an underachiver.
If he played in today’s are he would maybe (and that is a big maybe) be in the bottom tier of the top 10. But, when he played the courts were quicker and the points were shorter. How he couldn’t win more than one Grand Slam still leaves my puzzled.
I veiw someone like Ljubicic as an overrachiever. His game never had me convinced he was someone who could win on the big stage. So, I consider his career a great success that he was able to work hard and actually get to #2 or 3 in the world rankings for a short time.
Goran had the game to win multiple Grand Slam titles in that area (again because of the faster courts and juiced tennis balls), but he had a mental block. Outside of that one Wimbledon title, he underachieved. Look at his titles. I think he has over 20 titles and all of them were at small tournaments. I don’t think he ever won a Masters title.
4 Wimbledon finals and 1 title, what did he have to do to be known for his tennis? Win 20 grand slams? None of us would even know who he was if it were not for the tennis he produced.
That is what Goran will always be known, surely not the tennis he produced.
hilarious stuff goran funny
Perkovic update.
http://www.vecernji.hr/hrvatska/policija-dosla-po-josipa-perkovica-izrucit-ce-ga-danas-916963
Dunno if u fuckers have seen this – it was only today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNHIoFJ7aA0
Goran was playing in some legends’ exhibition doubles match and these are some funny moments..
the cunt is still pretty funny ! : )