The Olympic Ice-Hockey tournament has already proceeded to the semifinal stage meaning that there are now only the 4 (arguable) best teams left in the tournament. The teams still left include one team that has been seen all along as the biggest favourite to win the tournament and 3 teams which are to most bettors slight surprises.

Each of these teams has now played several games and thus sports bettors from all around the world should now have a decent idea about the weaknesses and strengths of each team. However even if you know everything about all of these 4 times it might feel hard to convert your thoughts into numbers and estimates on how likely each team is to win the gold medals. It certainly wasn’t easy for us either, but after some pondering here are our estimates for each team:

Canada – 60%

Canada losing to USA earlier in the tournament might have turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Thanks to it Canada got one extra game in which managed to hammer German 8-2 and clearly that made the team even is stronger as in the following game it won the other big favourite to win the tournament 7-3. In semifinal Canada is playing against Slovakia which is somewhat similar team to Russia, but at least in theory, much weaker, so it would be a big shock if Canada didn’t make their way to the final.

USA – 25%

Team USA has certainly been the biggest positive surprise in this tournament so far. And thanks to getting Finland against them in the semifinals they now have great shot at making it to the final. We predict that in the final USA could be surprisingly tough thanks to how much experience many of their younger players have with similar situations and due to the fact that they already know that they can beat Canada even in this tournament.

Finland – 10%

It is bit of a surprise that Finland has managed to make their way even to the top 4 with their team. Their team certainly isn’t nowhere near to USA and Canada skill wise, however they have lot of experience in playing together in high-pressure situations which might turn out to be big advantage against the young team USA and against Canada if manages to get into lead early-on. However on the other hand while Finland has lot of experience with those said high-pressure situation they really haven’t done all that well in them and have really bad track-record in both Olympic finals and especially in the world cup finals.

Slovakia – 5%

Slovakia would first have to get really lucky to even make it to final and in the final it would be underdog against both Finland and USA, thus the chances of them winning the gold medals with their current team are slim.

With the odds offered by bookies USA looks at the moment like the best bet.