Unless Mexico has an ice hockey team in the Olympics, there will be no medal for the North American teams.

The U.S. came up short once again, losing 4-3 to still-undefeated Finland. The Americans end their Olympic vacation with a whopping 1-4-1 record.

To top it off, their biggest embarrassment came AFTER their elimination, with Mike Modano bitching about flights and hotels. Apparently, he was just being pissy because he was benched the whole third period.

Modano: "You'd think USA Hockey would be a well-oiled machine, but it's not," he said. "Basically we were on our own for hotels, tickets, flights, stuff like that. Normally we wouldn't have to worry about stuff like that."

Coach Peter Laviolette countered: "We were down looking for goals and looking for offense, and it wasn't about Mike Modano," he said. "The third period was clearly our best period. ... I think some players in general didn't seem to have the jump, and you do your best to get the players out there that have the jump."

Can we please end this nonsense of sending NHL players over there? They don't care about it enough. Give the kids a shot.

Meanwhile, our northern neighbors are sure to call a national day of mourning after Russia blanked Team Canada 2-0, with goals from Alexander Ovechkin and Alex Kovalev.

Expect some fireworks when the Rangers resume play against the Flyers. Darius Kasparaitis threw one of his patented low hip-checks on Philly's Simon Gagne late in the game. It was not penalized.

Henrik Lundqvist and Sweden advanced with a convincing 6-2 win over Switzerland.

Russia will play Finland in the semifinals on Friday. The Swedes will play the Czech Republic. The Czechs beat Slovakia 3-1 in the last quarterfinal match. Martin Rucinsky had a goal and an assist in the game, while Martin Straka added an empty-netter to seal the win.

So right now, Ville Nieminen, Fedor Tyutin, Darius Kasparaitis, Henrik Lundvist, Marek Malik, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka, and Martin Rucinsky all remain alive. The only one of the nine Rangers that is out is Marcel Hossa. That's great. Those guys should be nice and tired when the NHL resumes.

HDH

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