Olympic women’s hockey opens with closer scores, but not competitive games

At least Swiss goalie Florence Schelling is aptly named, so there is that.

The Sochi 2014 women's hockey tournament debuted to crowds of 4,000-plus on Saturday that were full of enthusiasm, as evidenced by the cheers whenever Switzerland crossed the red line with the puck during Canada's 5-0 win on Saturday. Being a draw helps the sport's cause, but the reality of the matter is the main reason the scorelines involving the superpowers — gold medal favourite Team USA beat Finland 3-1 — looked respectable is that the European teams' goalies were outstanding.

Schelling — one could get a good daytime drunk going by imbibing every time CBC's Mark Lee called her a "machine" — made 64 saves for the game but outgunned Swiss. The final shots on goal tally, 69-14, was near identical to the same two countries' game four years ago (62-13).

As Lee put it: ""The Swiss have to be proud, holding Canada to a 5-0 victory today."

Noora Räty was also outstanding for Finland — which granted, accounts for the Americans' most recent loss — with 40 saves in that 3-1 loss. Finland was outshot by a factor of three, although to be fair, Räty was busier when she stopped 58 shots in that Finn triumph over the U.S. three months ago.

That is the nature of international hockey for underdog teams, though. It's the same at the world junior championship and in the Olympic men's tournament: ride a dialled-in goalie, force the play to the perimeter of the big ice surface, wait for the break, hit the jackpot in the shootout. Eventually, it might work, like a soccer team stalling to go to penalties.

The Swiss-Canada scoreline can be partially explained by coach Kevin Dineen's aversion to running up the score. Once the game was well in hand, not long after a beer league-worthy Swiss breakdown where a wind-sucking defender stumbled while facing a 3-on-1 and Canada's Marie-Philip Poulin had an easy goal, the bench boss changed up his line combinations endlessly. Canadian defenders dumped the puck into the Swiss zone. As an aside, Canada's defence wasn't overly impressive with how it handled and moved the puck, which could bite it in a game against a quicker team such as the Americans.

Like it or not, double standards vis–à–vis male hockey tournaments with a propensity to produce games that are exercises in formality, the women's hockey's competitiveness is going to be a story in Sochi. The upshots are the tournament was a draw and money talks. Russia could still surprise. Finland and Switzerland, the RC Cola and Mr. Pibb to North America's Coke and Pepsi, also have really good goaltending. The pace and tempo of the sport make it watchable even if the outcomes are predictable.

Parity can't be built in in a day, apparently unlike a Sochi hotel.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.