Sometimes, says Colin Muller, these women from his homeland could be like sharks.

"If they smell blood, they will come.

And you can't do anything.” Now, in the first third of the first semifinal game of the Olympic ice hockey tournament, they smelled blood.

Minute seven: 1-0 by Claire Thompson.

Minute eight: 2-0 through Jamie Lee Rattray.

Nine minutes: 3-0 through Blayre Turnbull.

Nine minutes: 4:0 through Renata Fast.

Only 17 seconds elapse between the third and fourth goal.

And in the large pool of ice, Muller and his crew still have more than 50 minutes with the sharks.

Christopher Meltzer

Sports correspondent in Munich.

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It's Monday lunchtime at the Wukesong Sports Center in Beijing.

Women's Ice Hockey Semifinals, Canada vs. Switzerland.

"There's nothing you can do," says Colin Muller as he stands in the interview zone after the game.

The 58-year-old has just said that before.

Muller comes from Canada, but feels at home in Switzerland.

You can hear that in his Schwyzerdütsch – and you can see that in his CV.

He has spent more than 30 years as a player and coach in Switzerland.

He has now worked there for three years as the women's national coach.

"I'm super proud of my team," he says.

He can be too.

Because his team has entered the final - the final that urgently needs to be invented.

There should actually be two finals in the women's Olympic ice hockey tournament.

One for Canada and the USA.

And one for the other eight nations.

This Monday you can see the class difference in the semi-finals.

In the first Canada wins 10:3 over Switzerland.

In the second, the USA defeats Finland 4-1.

This is how the winter games go for winter games.

There have been six finals in the history of the women's ice hockey tournament: Canada played six times and the USA five times.

Up until the spectacular final game, this competition lacks what is literally supposed to make it special: the competition.

From a German point of view, one could even say that if you watch the women's Olympic ice hockey during the week, you can hardly stand the excitement of the men's Bundesliga at the weekend.

54 goals in six games

You can take this situation with humor.

But Colin Muller is now missing on this issue.

He fears that after the game for bronze on Wednesday (12.30 p.m. CET in the FAZ live ticker for the Olympics, on ARD and on Eurosport) five to six of his players will never play for the national team again.

"Then you have to start all over again." What's frustrating for Muller is that he can even understand her.

For the Olympic dream, his players not only had to invest time, but also money.

If the coach scheduled a training session, they had to pay the 40 francs for the train themselves.

"You pay to come to training," says Muller again, as if he couldn't believe it himself.

A reporter from Switzerland says that the association spends CHF 14 million a year on the men.

Muller is silent.

When Muller is still on his way to the interview zone, Claire Thompson, who scored 1-0 for Canada, is standing there and also talks about the money that is missing in Europe and is there in North America.

"We get a lot of support," she says of the hockey federations in Canada and the United States.

"We can meet and train again and again."

The result of the extra units can be seen in Beijing.

With 54 goals in six games, Canada set an Olympic record even before the final.

As a coach you are very nervous before games against Canada, says Muller.

"You may get 15 goals.

Once it starts, you don't know how to stop it."

This Monday there will only be ten goals.

On the Thursday before the opening ceremony, when Canada and Switzerland played each other in the preliminary round, there were still twelve.

"I'm super proud," says Colin Muller.

His team fought back and even scored three goals.

And that after conceding four goals in two minutes.

"If we take that away, we lost 3:6." In Olympic women's ice hockey, you can't even use tricks like that to make a semifinal exciting.