Vancouver Canada

Funny how it works at the Olympics. Snow was being imported to the weather-challenged Cypress Mountain just a few days ago, the lingering reminder of an often problematic venue. Then came Tuesday. It started snowing during the women's ski cross event and started coming down harder and harder throughout the day and night. Perfect for a Currier & Ives holiday print. Not quite so ideal for the aerial freestylers. The women's final was held Wednesday night and the men are scheduled to take center stage Thursday.

A look at Thursday's women's hockey gold-medal game between the U.S. and Canada: Forwards U.S.: Jenny Potter and Natalie Darwitz, who are seeking their fourth and third Olympic medals, respectively, lead a talented group of forwards. Potter has six goals and five assists in four games, and Darwitz has scored four times with seven assists. Monique Lamoureux (10 points) and Hilary Knight and Kelli Stack (both with eight points) provide depth as the U.S. can roll four lines.

Two wins from Olympic hockey gold, the U.S. team has moved ever closer not only to a new legacy, but a new catch phrase. From "Do you believe in miracles?" to "Boooooo!" It has taken 30 years, but during a rowdy 2-0 victory over Switzerland in the quarterfinals Wednesday at Canada Hockey Place, the U.S. somehow moved from the cute descendants of Miracle on Ice to the current day Villains of Vancouver. "We must be doing something right," goalie Ryan Miller said with a unkempt bearded grin.

Defending Olympic hockey champion Sweden was sent home in the quarterfinals by emerging power Slovakia. Russia, expected to score its way to a gold medal, was undone by its lack of passion and defense and was run out of town by Canada. Few events in this tournament have gone according to form, starting with host Canada straining to beat Switzerland and stumbling against the U.S. in the first round, which sent the team to a qualifying game that stressed an entire nation. But each of the four teams that will meet in the semifinals Friday has displayed one consistent trait through 10 pressure-packed days here.

They gave their best, but it wasn't good enough to beat goaltender Jonas Hiller for the first 35 shots and 42 minutes of their quarterfinal playoff game against Switzerland on Wednesday. So members of the U.S. Olympic hockey team put aside their annoyance and dug into a well of determination. "You're kind of mentally prepared for that type of game and when you're playing a goalie that good we're expecting that," Zach Parise said of Hiller, the Ducks' No. 1 goaltender and backbone of a Swiss team that had to win a qualifying-round shootout Tuesday to get this far. "But we kept reaching on the bench to not get frustrated, to not allow ourselves to fall asleep and to keep playing the way we were playing and hopefully one was going to go in for us."

NBC said that Friday's Olympic semifinal hockey game between the U.S. and Finland will be broadcast live in all time zones, including Pacific. It will begin at noon Pacific time Friday. Sunday's gold medal hockey game is so far scheduled to be tape-delayed in the Pacific time zone at 3 p.m. (The game starts at noon). As a historical note, the Beijing Olympics gold medal basketball game was also scheduled to be tape-delayed but when the U.S. made the finals, NBC did show the game live.

The women's giant slalom was finally put to bed Thursday as Julia Mancuso tried to put a few rumors, and her emotional Olympic experience, to rest. Mancuso had no real shot at Whistler to defend her gold medal. Hope ended Wednesday when she finished 18th in her first run. Mancuso was flagged off course during her run and forced to restart after teammate Lindsey Vonn crashed in front of her. Poor weather postponed the second run to Thursday morning, which gave Mancuso time to transition from fuming to philosophical.

It seemed fitting the daytime serial that played out Wednesday between gold-medal-winning American rivals Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso would have to be continued until . . . Thursday. These are, after all, the days of their lives. Skiing bib-to-bib in the Olympic giant slalom, Vonn at No. 17 and Mancuso at No. 18, Vonn crashed while flying back-first into a retaining fence, broke her right pinkie finger, and it might have cost Mancuso the chance to defend her GS gold medal.

Curling tops my list of what I respectfully refer to as "Dumb Winter Sports." To this list, I would include almost everything except skiing, snowboarding and hockey, which are merely "Insane Winter Sports." People call to ask what it's like up here, and I tell them that it's like summer camp in the snow -- for the dumb and the insane. You should hear them sigh enviously on the other end of the phone line. Yet, curling leads the dumb list. As you probably know, the Scots invented it some 500 years ago, and probably what's most amazing is not that it has survived over the centuries but that they ever played it a second time.

The chipmunk costume was the final straw. A mother's desire for her daughter to become a figure skater led to a young Lisa Chesson in tears at each competition. She so hated to dress up as a rodent that it led to the end of her figure-skating career and the start of one in hockey. That change has led her all the way to Thursday's gold-medal game against favored Canada. "My mom wanted me to be a figure skater because she was when she was younger," said Chesson, a defenseman on the U.S. women's team.