From Russia, with bile, while Sasquatch lurks

Three links while you wait for tonight's hockey game, where, mercifully, Russia won't be on the ice against Canada. As Trueslant.com's Julia Ioffe notes from Moscow, the reaction to yesterday's Canada men's win over Russia has been as brutal as you might expect:

Hanging out in Vancouver?.

The city of Tomsk held a moment of silence. “Because of disgraceful performance of our team I’m afraid to approach TV-set,” tweeted Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO. “How on earth could we have blown it so disastrously in hockey?”

Cathal Kelly rounds it all up back at the home office, noting a Pravda editorial from before the game that has been making the rounds.

But Pravda, which has morphed into kind of a Russian Weekly World News, has come back with an exclusive - "Canadian researcher snaps Sasquatch in Vancouver", after "Canadian cryptozoologist Randy Brisson" snapped Bigfoot, reassuredly noting the big lug was "quite far from sports objects":

Brisson assured his Russian colleagues that it was a photo of the legendary Bigfoot, or Sasquatch. The popularity of the mythical creature has won it the honor to become a symbol and a mascot of Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Mr. Brisson’s photo may mean that the mascots ramble somewhere in the woods of the Olympic city.

Interview: Cammi Granato

She's already a pioneer, the first woman to be inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame and one of the first three to go into the IIHF Hall of Fame. Just one more to go, then, for Cammi Granato, a cinch to enter the Hockey Hall of Fame, perhaps this year when the Toronto-based Hall opens its members' lounge to the women's game. Longtime U.S. hockey stalwart, schooled at Concordia, now living in Vancouver, married to ex-NHLer Ray Ferraro and serving as an analyst on NBC's women's hockey coverage – here is a woman of many allegiances, you would think. I talked to her yesterday at Canada Hockey Place – while Canada and Russia were taking to the ice, we were inside the building waiting for first the U.S. and then the Canadian women to go through their media paces ahead of today's gold-medal game matching the traditional rivals.(Photo: Cammi Granato celebrating Team U.S.A.'s victory over Canada at the 2005 world championships. Getty Images)

Morning links, Day 14

 And a busy one it is, with more to come today in figure skating, hockey, curling and aerials. We're almost home:

A bobsled one-two for Canada. Kaillie Humphries' secret recipe for gold: “I’m not really looking at times. I just push my butt off and make it to the bottom.”

Short-track silver for Canada, after Korea was disqualified – another medal for the Greggs, and a nice going-out present for Tania Vicent. (Photo above by Rick Eglinton/Toronto Star)

And one for the ages, as Clara Hughes goes out with another medal and heads into a new career (photo, Tara Walton/Toronto Star). From Randy Starkman's report:

“There is nothing like this. The thing working in broadcasting in China showed me is it's a really special thing to be an Olympic athlete.

“I thought 'I get to do this one more time.' And I never lost sight of what 'this' is. Because when it's over, it's over. And now it's actually over. Wow.”

The earth's rotational wobble has been corrected. Canada beats Russia at the Olympics for the first time in 50 years. Bryzgalov on the Canadian men: “Like gorillas coming out of a cage.” And from Yahoo! Sports' Dmitry Chesnokov's Twitter updates, a quote from Russian coach Bykov on the Russian media: "Let's put up guillotines & gallows in Red Sq & kill all players & staff. Why look for someone to blame?" and "Right now we're taking our hats off for Canada. They were better. The level of our team is lower. For today."

Outside the Canadian news, the latest episode of Vonncouver continues on the feud with teammate Julia Mancuso.

Don Draper goes shopping.

And a York University study says that wearing red helps you with the judges. Maybe that explains yesterday's run. Except that Canada wore their whites last night. But oh, that was hockey: “All things being equal between two figure skaters – including their actual speed on the ice – the judges will perceive a skater in red is moving with greater speed than a skater in blue, and may reward the skater in red with higher marks.”