Olympic Sport News

Archive for March 1st, 2010

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- There are a lot of things we're going to miss about Hockey Place, our home away from home (away from home) for the last two weeks of hockey mayhem:

The fans from all over the world creating a party-like atmosphere for every game; the mad dash by reporters to get from the press box to the media "mix zone" before dejected players waddled through to the locker rooms; the Garbage Princess, whose bellowing siren-of-a-voice motivated the clean-up staff between games; and, of course, the smell of herbal narcotics filling the air a few blocks away on Hastings Street the free coffee.

Mostly, though, we're going to miss the hockey. Because there was a lot of it, and a lot of it was great.

Here are some yearbook-style awards for the best and the worst of the 2010 Winter Olympic hockey tournament from inside the arena, taking us from Severin Blindencaher's holding penalty at 9:49 of the first game (USA/Switzerland) to Sidney Crosby's overtime game-winner for gold.

Best Game: Well, if the USA/Canada gold medal tilt is being called one of the greatest hockey games of all time, chances are it's the best game of the tournament, right?

The talent, the crowd, the offensive flow, the stakes, the stunning shifts in momentum, the goaltending exhibitions and the heart-stopping heroics at the game's final stages ... all of it combined to make the 3-2 Canada gold medal victory one for the ages. The image of the players skating the Canadian flag as if it were the Stanley Cup after the victory was as incredible as the celebrations the win sparked all over the country. It was like the end of "Return of the Jedi" in the special editions; we like to think of Toronto as Coruscant.

Worst Game: Slovakia's 6-0 win over Latvia. It lacked the chaotic charm of Latvia's mini-rally in its earlier 8-2 loss to the Russians. This was a flat-out curb-stomping. Latvia gave up more goals in the first periods of their tournament than some teams scored in their entire tournament.

Best Song Played Incessantly at Hockey Place: Jay-Z's "Public Service Announcement," a favorite of Ryan Kesler and the unofficial entrance music for Team USA throughout the tournament. Runner-up: "Waterloo" by ABBA, which was treated like a national anthem by the Swedish fans.

Best Atmosphere: With respect to the enormous outpouring of enthusiasm for Team Canada from the home fans in games against the USA and Russia, we'll take the booze-filled, chanting masses in any of the 9 p.m. games during prelims, where the Euro journalists would show up on press row with a few Molsons themselves.

The Five Players Whose Stock Rose in the Olympics

1. Ryan Miller, Buffalo Sabres

He's now a household name in the U.S. among casual sports fans, and even a Stanley Cup victory may not have given him that. All the "Do You Believe in Millercles" stuff was a sensation, but it was Miller's clutch play that made it more than a meme. The fact that the Olympics dragged the personality out of him helped hockey fans connect with Miller better than ever before. If you didn't appreciate his MVP qualities prior to the Olympics, chances are you do now.

2. Jonathan Toews, Chicago Blackhawks

Coach Mike Babcock said there isn't much Toews did in this tournament for Canada that he doesn't do for the Blackhawks, but that doesn't change the fact that Toews proved to be Canada's most versatile and effective forward. He could play up with Sidney Crosby. He could play down on a checking line. When Babcock put together the unit of Rick Nash, Mike Richards and Toews, it became Canada's best line against the Russians and played well throughout the tournament. Star-making performance for Toews, especially in contrast with Patrick Kane's struggles on the U.S. team.

3. Zach Parise, New Jersey Devils

Say hello to Captain Clutch for this generation of American players. Parise struggled here and there but ended with eight points, including two goals against the Swiss and that third-period goal against Canada to send the game into overtime.

4. Jaromir Jagr, Czech Republic

The Jagr nostalgia movement was one of the most unexpected and charming stories to come out of the Games. But before he was injured, Jagr was living up to the love-in: Looking fast, looking sharp and looking very much like a player who could come back to the NHL in the fall and thrive.

5. Tore Vikingstad, Norway

Forgetting for a moment that we're dealing with perhaps the greatest name in hockey history, Vikingstad also scored four goals for the Norge, including a hat trick in a terrific game against the Swiss. But yeah, back on the name: The only way it could be better is if Tore spoke about himself in the third person ("VIKINGSTAD IS SAD NOW ... WHERE IS VIKINGSTAD'S BEER?").

Player Whose Stock Dropped The Most: Peter Forsberg, Sweden. The hands were still there. The legs weren't, and Forsberg was an anchor out there for Sweden, despite some Forsbergian moments of offensive creativity.

Best Line of the Tournament: With respect to Canada's Brendan Morrow/Ryan Getzlaf/Corey Perry unit, there was no line that clicked better than that of Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Backstrom and Loui Eriksson of Sweden. They had instant chemistry, showed a high level of offense skill and buzzed the net on seemingly every shift. Backstrom had a very strong tournament. This line was a bright spot on an underwhelming Swedish team.

Biggest Surprise Team (in a good way): Slovakia, for sure. Not only for making the bronze medal game, but beating the Russians and the Swedes on its way there. We knew the Slovaks had talent; we didn't know that winger Pavol Demitra of the Vancouver Canucks was going to lead the Olympics in points (10). Guess skating with Marian Hossa brings out his offense more than skating with Kyle Wellwood.

Biggest Surprise Team (in a bad way): Russia, hands down, no debate, conversation over. The loss to Slovakia in the prelims was a stunner, but the no-show in the battle with Canada during the quarterfinals was a titanic whiff by this team. The lines never came together. The KHL reinforcements played like ... well, KHL reinforcements. It was an embarrassment for Russian hockey.

Biggest Flameout by a Big-Name Goalie: Evgeni Nabokov must have breathed a sigh of relief after seeing Miikka Kiprusoff's epic fail against the Americans. Nabby had a poor showing against the Canadians, but Kipper gave up more goals (4) than made saves (3) against the U.S.

Scariest Moment of the Tournament: Slovakia's Lubos Bartecko getting elbowed by Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, banging his head on the ice and blood pooling under it. The single most gruesome image and scene that played out in Hockey Place. We should be thankful that there wasn't much competition in this category.

Most Overblown Story of the Tournament: Alex Ovechkin vs. the camera. We won't get into the gripes about his media availability again, because you're either going to think that it's media whining or a legit gripe about the most famous player in the world not helping to sell his sport or the 2014 Games. But the videos of Ovie getting rough with a few cameras isn't part of that story. It's bad optics for a celebrity athlete, but it sure as hell isn't a suspension-level offense.

Most Underplayed Story of the Tournament: The bronze medal game. We'd wager that 80 percent of the media covering the tournament sat this one out, which meant missing a furious four-goal rally by the Finns in the third period and some great hockey throughout the last 40 minutes.

Best Goal of the Tournament: Raffaele Sannitz of Switzerland in its 5-4 victory over Norway, a.k.a. the best game you didn't see. He was in front of the Norge net when he received a bouncing pass from the slot. He used his stick to stop the puck and lift it up off the ice before batting it in about waist high. Sannitz later told us that he's a tennis player, and was using that skill set to play the puck. This would have been the YouTube moment of the tourney in another game.

Best Hit: Ovechkin on Jagr. It still hurts to watch, even in some strange Sega '94 pixel way:

Worst Star Player Moment: Marty Brodeur's belly flop against the U.S., allowing a key goal.

Best Chant: "We Want Russia."

Worst Chant: The attempt to chant Jaroslav Halak's name in a taunting manner, which was aborted when Canadian fans realized they had no idea how to pronounce it.

Worst Fan of the Tournament: The dumbass in the Oilers jersey attempting to get Lubomir Visnovsky to sign his ticket in the media mix zone after Lubo's team lost the bronze.

Best Fan of the Tournament: Who else but Mitkini Girl?

She's 30, from Ottawa, painted herself for Canada's game against Germany and slammed her mittens on the penalty box glass while dancing for Scott Niedermayer. She had no idea Canada would be playing in that game when she purchased the tickets, which led us to ask if she still would have pulled off the outfit if it were two random teams playing. That she said yes makes her the Fan of the Games.

The Russians did not do well during the Vancouver Olympics, and now they're searching for answers and someone to blame. President Dmitry Medvedev has -- without mentioning anyone's name -- asked for resignations from those responsible for the poor showing.

"Those who bear the responsibility for Olympic preparations should carry that responsibility. It's totally clear," he said. "I think that the individuals responsible, or several of them, who answer for these preparations, should take the courageous decision to hand in their notice. If we don't see such decisiveness, we will help them."

The delegation from Russia finished sixth in the overall medal count with 15, the first time that has ever happened in the post-Soviet Russia. After making a bizarre announcement that they were going to win 40 medals -- an unheard of number in the Winter Games -- 15 medals is particularly hard to bear.

Some losses -- like figure skater Evgeni Plushenko's second-place finish to American Evan Lysacek, and the hockey team losing badly to the Canadians -- were high profile and particularly embarrassing to the country that is set to host the Winter Olympics in 2014.

Before the Games head to Sochi in 2014, Medvedev wants changes.

"Without messing around, we need to start preparations for Sochi. But taking into account what happened in Vancouver, we need to completely change how we prepare our athletes," Medvedev said.

Medvedev was scheduled to attend the Olympics Closing Ceremony, where Vancouver officially handed over the Winter Olympics to Sochi, but he didn't show up.

The Russian medal flop may account for the absence of Medvedev, who had been expected to come to Vancouver for the final days of the games. His plans apparently changed after the Russian men's hockey team — expected to make Sunday's final — was knocked out in the quarterfinals by Canada.

Figure skating provides a good snapshot of the decline of Russian athletic dominance. The gold in pairs figure skating had been won by a Russian or Soviet team every Olympics since 1964, until this year, when it was won by the Chinese pair of Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao. A Russian pair didn't even make the podium, and Russia was also left without a real challenger in women's skating. They only won two medals -- a silver for Plushenko and a bronze in ice dancing -- in a sport in which they routinely bring home four. 

A return to prominence is going to be tough in a rapidly changing Olympic landscape. Asian countries, particularly Japan and South Korea, are aggressively improving their sports programs. Even the U.S., traditionally not strong in winter sports, showed that they can dominate, winning 37 medals and the overall medal count in Vancouver. 

The Russians will have home-field advantage in 2014, something that clearly helped the Canadians, who took home 14 gold medals. However, Canada didn't sit idly by and hope that hometown cheering would do it all; they started the "Own The Podium" program, which directed resources to Canadian Olympic efforts.

Russia may want to consider something similar, or they will be red-faced again four years from now. 

Given a choice, some would say stuff the Sidney Crosby-Paul Henderson comparisons.

Why even compare? Let each stand alone. A gut feeling is that Crosby's goal  defined his game and his genius for blink-you-missed it brilliance, falls short of Henderson's in 1972 on cultural relevance.

A lot of people would draw the line at the politics of the time. It was also the difference between Caanada needing it and wanting it. We needed someone to score The Goal in Game 8 of the '72 Summit Series. The country's pride in just knowing only we knew how hockey should be played had been wounded by the robotic Russians. It meant that much.

Today, it was more like wanting to win since, well, it's better than whatever came next. Hockey is Canada's religion, but not a state religion. A loss to rival Team USA would have been a kick in the pants, no more, contrary to how U.S. writers have framed it. Within a day or two, the beer would have tasted just as good and the Rockies would have seemed just as tall, to borrow something Mordecai Richler wrote after '72.

Henderson's goal also brought Canada back into international hockey. People under the age of about 25 or 30 might not know this, but putting on the Maple Leaf was alien to the NHL stars of Henderson and Phil Esposito's era. They had never done it. There was no world junior championship for teenagers. Canadian players whose teams were eliminated from the playoffs did not go over to Europe to play in the worlds. The country passed on sending a hockey team to the two Winter Games in that decade. 

They learned it all on the fly. Contrast that with Jonathan Toews, who Jeff Blair has noted has already won a world junior title, a world championship and an Olympic gold medal before his 22nd birthday. 

The fear of the unknown extended to the Soviets and the communist system (remember, part of Esposito's famous rant was "we didn't know the Russians were gonna be this good"). That can never happen today when Roberto Luongo is having his crease crashed by Vancouver Canucks teammate Ryan Kesler, or Duncan Keith is defending a 2-on-1 with Chicago Blackhawks teammate Patrick Kane coming down on him.

Lastly, there was more of an urgency. In '72, Canada was 34 seconds from losing and all it embodied. The Soviets were poised to declare victory if it ended in a 3-3-2 tie after eight games. They had to score.

Today, there was a potential 12-plus minutes of overtime to win or lose, plus a shootout. 

Not that anyone should take away from Crosby's goal, and with almost half the country watching, it will take on a life of its own. It surpasses Mario Lemieux's Canada Cup winner in 1987, for the simple fact one was at the Olympics and the other was in a made-for-Alan-Eagleson event.

Baby boomers who got to see both can make personal comparisons. Younger hockey lovers have to extrapolate.

What happened Sunday will live on forever, especially since the source was Sid The Kid. Some, such as the great hockey blog The 6th Sens, are joking, why did it have to be Crosby who provided such a defining moment? For already Crosby-saturated Canadians, it's like the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees teaming up to find a cancer cure. It's great, but you know you'll never hear the end of it.

Well, not to take too much of a straight-line view, but 22-year-old Sid the Kid had an opportunity the other all-timers never had in their prime. Knee injuries kept Bobby Orr out of the '72 Series.

Wayne Gretzky did not get a chance at the Olympics until he was 37. Gretzky was in his prime during at least two Olympic years, 1984 and '88. Who's to say what might have been?

In other words, Crosby buried his chance. That's what a legend does.

Still, there could only be one Paul Henderson moment. You also don't get many Sidney Crosby moments in this life.

Now the question is how to keep the spirit alive.

Canada had best possible outcome from Vancouver 2010, all coming together with a Sidney Crosby signature-moment climax. A friend called it crazy in a great way, only he didn't say crazy. What the moment stood for will be borne out in the years to come. It certainly supported any arguments that "Own The Podium" must be continued.

Crosby sniping the golden goal 7:40 into overtime could have happened without OTP. The celebration, though, was one piece of a puzzle that fell so wonderfully into place for our home and native land these past 17 days. It was the best of the hockey-obsessed Canada merging with the one which, as bobsleigh queen Helen Upperton said late last week, knows it has to diversify its athletic portfolio, win more medals.

After a Games that 99 percent of Canadians watched at some point, maybe there is a spur to emulate the U.S., whose 36 medals were the payoff of a long-term plan that began after the 1998 Nagano Olympics to upgrade on a skein of fourth- and fifth-place finishes. One would hope the success would get a few more of us (present company at the head of the line) up and active.

The last four, five days of the Games, one gold piled onto another, with a courageous Joannie Rochette bronze mixed in, whet the appetite for Sunday. The hockey finale, so long as Canada was in it, was going to draw the largest audience. That went without saying.

Perhaps what put it over the top was what came before. It maybe prompted a few more Canadians to take to the streets after the hockey win, made it not just a hockey victory but a Canadian victory. What made it different from 2002 was the long line of success stories at the 21st Olympiad.

It helped jam Dundas Square at the country's epicentre, downtown Toronto. Perhaps it gave some firefighters in Kingston, Ontario, the idea to decorate one of the trucks with flags and drive it down Princess Street, the city's main drag, sirens blaring.

One benefit of living in Canada is having options with how you identify yourself. Sometimes it makes it harder to emerge from those smaller and smaller boxes sometimes. The great outpouring was like the snow flying at Whistler, better late than never. People opted in eventually.

It also cut across all lines. Boomers who were privileged to see it can admit there's a moment to rival Paul Henderson's winning goal in 1972, reaching back to listening to that Summit Series on transistor radios to watching it today on 50-inch flat screens. Younger generations, Xers and millennials now have their own where-were-you moment, although given their preference for complexity, will probably try to say, no-no, Henderson was still bigger. But that's another post.

Now, as the country's far and away greatest sportswriter, Stephen Brunt, wondered on Saturday, what comes next? In a perfect world, what happened over the past few days would be bottled, with CTV selling, just kidding.

The country has always faced challenges with helping pay the price for athletic brilliance, be it pro, Olympic and amateur. At the higher levels, the attitude has always been either to you're on your own, or pick a sport which people will pay for the privilege of watching.

It is reasonable to think people liked the taste of gold. If a record 14 first-place medals didn't achieve it, what would? Perhaps this was the catalytic event for Canada to decide once and for all to go all-in on the Olympics. It could become to the Winter Games what Australia, another immigrant nation with a spread-out population, is at the Summer Games.

This is a prod, be it with a ski pole of Chris Pronger's hockey stick, to put our money where our mouths are, essentially.

As great as Feb. 28, 2010 will feel, even as all the bills come due for VANOC and various level of government, Canada has to face up to its corner-cutting.

We attempted to game the system a bit, and got egged for it by the international media. Our focus was on winning golds in the latter-day additions to the Games: freestyle skiing, snowboarding, short-track speedskating. Curling and hockey, and let's be honest here, should be a near-automatic four medals.

Owning the podium in Sochi would mean breaking the European and American hold on more traditional disciplines. The country had golds in two-woman bobsleigh and skeleton, both third-time events. It was shut out in luge, which was held at the same venue.

The alpine ski team failed to earn a medal, although it had promising results. It played out similarly with the men's cross-country team, which had its success stories, capped by Devon Kershaw's fifth-place finish in the men's 50-km race.

The Olympics are an unfair game, with the older disciplines having more medals up for grabs. The point is we can do better, spread that pleasure of sport around to more of the elite athletes and down to the grass roots. It can always be done better. If you don't keep moving, you get complacent, and Canada has paid the price for taking quality sportspeople for granted far too often.

Meantime, yes, what a feeling. This was what Canada has wanted and it got it this time. Now we have to decide whether we want it again, and again. 

Unbelievably, the Olympics are now over. The past 17 days have been filled with sadness, joy, inspiration and thrills. All of this has been shown in some amazing images captured during the Olympics.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- It's the Olympic hockey equivalent of the walk of shame: The long, winding catacomb of barriers bringing players from the ice through the media to the locker room. On Saturday night, Slovakia made the walk; on Sunday, it was Team USA, taking little joy in the silver consolation prizes hanging around their necks.

Which is unfortunate, of course, because the Americans accomplished something here that's bigger than a 3-2 overtime loss to the host nation. They were the underdogs, and defiantly rolled through the tournament undefeated until the gold medal game. Ryan Miller became a household name. Ron Wilson polished the tarnish from his time coaching in Toronto. Players like Chris Drury proved critics wrong. Zach Parise became America's clutchest forward, and Brian Rafalski its sage defenseman, despite not being able to thwart Sidney Crosby's golden goal.

So there's reason to celebrate silver, right Dustin Brown?

"Not really. I know it's an Olympic medal, but in a tournament like this, nothing but gold ... it's what we came here to do," said the Los Angeles Kings winger. "I'm sure a few years down the road, we'll be proud of it. But not right now."

Parise was more to the point: "It sucks. It sucks being that close and then losing in overtime."

It's impossible not to have felt a twinge of destiny in Parise's tying goal with 25 seconds left in regulation. Miller had steadied himself after surrendering two goals, looking impenetrable again. The Americans were peppering Luongo. The gold appeared in reach.

Then Jarome Iginla ended up with the puck in the offensive zone during the 4-on-4 overtime. Crosby called for it. Iggy made a backhand pass to him, and Crosby put it past Miller, who was trying to aggressively defend his net.

"I think the puck got caught up at the ref's feet at the half wall. Sidney was walking out as a lefty, and he had his head down for a second. I've been aggressive all tournament and I wasn't going to change my game because it was overtime," said Miller.

Despite the OT goal, Miller was spectacular again. "He was our MVP, that's for sure," said winger Bobby Ryan. "I think we played well. Tough night. Tough building. Everybody handled the adversity well, and battled to the very end."

Crosby's goal meant a bittersweet moment for Team USA defenseman Brooks Orpik, Sid's teammate with the Pittsburgh Penguins. "He's one of those guys who, in a big game, steps up his play. You never want to lose. But if we're going to lose, I'm happy he had success."

Orpik was one of the veterans who said the shock of settling for silver instead of winning gold will subside. "The initial sting hurts a little bit. But you let the dust settle, you get some time to reflect, and I think they will be pretty proud of what they accomplished," said Orpik.

"We had a really good group of young guys who came through our development program in Ann Arbor. They've got a lot of good years ahead of them. Hopefully down in the States, [the game] was viewed by a lot of people and it grows that game even more," he said.

That was a theme for the Americans throughout this tournament: Growing the game. Giving the fans back home something to tell their casual fan friends about. Proving that American hockey talent has caught up with that of the Canadians.

"It's just a shame that both teams couldn't receive the gold medal today. Sometimes the best team in the tournament doesn't win the gold medal. I thought our team played as well as any team I've ever coached," said Wilson.

"I'd like to congratulate Canada. They played a great game. At the same time I say that, I think we played as equally a great game. I think both teams are winners, and more than anything hockey in general. I couldn't have asked anything more of our players. They did us proud."

Everyone across the country is entitled to have her/his own list of the best five, eight, 10 Canadian memories of the Games.

It's a daunting.  A country winning 26 medals, including a record number of golds for a Winter Games host, means at least a dozen great stories are going to be left out. Simply put, there might be what seem like glaring omissions, but this is more of a personal list, gleaned from two weeks of watching the Olympics wall-to-wall.

1. Alexandre Bilodeau wins Canada's first gold. By the end of the Games, as we predicted it would be on the night he won, the sight of a Canadian on the top step of the podium was commonplace. Bilodeau's triumph, drawing on the strength of his brother, Frédéric, who has cerebral palsy, still raises tears two weeks later.

The Olympics are still on some level about people who seem ordinary doing something extraordinary. That was reflected in the quiet dignity of the Bilodeaus — Alex, Fred, parents Serge and Sylvie and younger sister Béatrice. You saw a glimpse of the family unit any Olympic athlete needs. Perhaps it makes what Joannie Rochette was able to do less surprising.

And no one had tangible proof that was going to happen when the 22-year-old Bilodeau took down expat Dale Begg-Smith late on Day 3, turning in a brilliant final run that has since been immortalized in a commercial.

2. Mighty Monty. Skeleton champion Jon Montgomery, a guy who decided he was going to be an Olympian first and picked the event second, became Canada's man of the Games. He went all-out to win, then celebrated the way you or I imagine we would celebrate winning an Olympic gold medal. The country was ready to party on that middle Friday of the Games, and Monty gave them a reason.

3. Clara Hughes' victory laps.  The consummate Olympian went out gracefully, winning a bronze medal in women's 5,000-metre speedskating. At a wondrous, ageless 37, she skated a technically perfect race, skating a Richmond Oval-record 6:55.73 to briefly take over the lead in her last serious race. It seldom mattered that two much younger skaters surpassed her time.

Bob Howes, the centre on those great Edmonton Eskimos teams of the 1970s, once said, "Very seldom do you get to win your last game." Well, Clara Hughes won hers.

4. The unity of the bobsledders. The moment of triumph isn't always what sticks. It took one night, and one goofy moment, for the impact of Kaillie Humphries, Heather Moyse, Helen Upperton and Shelley-Ann Brown's 1-2 finish in two-woman bobsleigh to hit home.

The competition among a country's athletes to get an Olympic bobsleigh spot can be more cutthroat than law school. Serious grudges develop. The Canadian women rose above it. It was evident when an interviewer put them up to singing a few bars of the fluffy Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feeling," which they did.

The way Brown, Humphries, Moyse and Upperton played along, singing, smiling ear-to-ear, lent itself to feeling like the Games had become part of something larger than ourselves, since that song has become an anthem of the moment. Anyone whose business and pleasure is writing and talking about sports hears "I Gotta Feeling" at all sorts of events. It's not a great song, but since Canadians are exposed to so much U.S. culture, it's only natural it would be a vessel for a greater message.

5. The giant flag. One would prefer to believe it was just a great, spontaneous moment for Corey Perry to procure a giant Maple Leaf for the hockey players to take around the ice, the way players do after winning the Stanley Cup. It was a perfect ender.

A classic hockey game wrapped up an eventful Olympics full of drama, sadness and elation.

Join us tonight to take in all of the glitz and glamor of the Closing Ceremony!

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Sidney Crosby, literally Canada's golden boy.

The Pittsburgh Penguins star scored at 67:40 of the Olympic men's hockey final, an overtime game-winner that gave Canada the gold medal in a heart-stopping 3-2 win over the U.S. The crowd chanted "Crosby, Crosby" as the hardware was placed around his neck.

No miracles. Miller Time was over. Canada's game, Canada's gold, thanks to Crosby.

Defenseman Brian Rafalski lost the puck in the Team USA zone, and Jarome Iginla made a backhand pass around Ryan Suter to Crosby, who had beaten Rafalski to the net. Sid the Kid, having his best goal-scoring season in the NHL, beat goalie Ryan Miller (36 saves) for the gold.

"I didn't see it go in the net. I just heard everyone scream," said Crosby.

"I saw [Iginla] get a step on the guy and steal his puck. I just tried to let him know where I was and throw it at the net. He had his back turned toward me. I didn't think he'd know I was there. I just threw it at the net. I wasn't really aiming for anything."

His heroics came after Canada blew a lead late in the third period. Zach Parise's goal for the U.S. made OT necessary. With Miller pulled, Patrick Kane -- who assisted on Ryan Kesler's goal for the USA in the second period -- blasted the puck off of Jamie Langenbrunner's skate. It hit Roberto Luongo, who fought it off, and then it trickled to Parise for the tying goal with 25 seconds left. He slapped his stick on the ice, skated to the glass and was mobbed by his teammates. We'd call it a miracle, but there's nothing miraculous about the Canadian defense allowing two U.S. forwards behind them with less than a minute to go. 

Yet, in the end, it's as much a career-defining game for Luongo as it's another legendary moment for Crosby, who won his first Stanley Cup last season.

Luongo, who replaced Martin Brodeur after Canada's earlier loss to the U.S. in the preliminary rounds, was confident in the first period, and then rebounded from a shaky second period to shut down several American chances in the third. He made four saves in overtime. Luongo was there when Canada needed him — and now he's wearing gold in front of a delirious arena.

The Americans win silver, thanks to Miller, who found his zone after getting down 2-0. Both goals were the result of defensive lapses: Erik Johnson turning the puck over to Mike Richards behind the net before Jonathan Toews snapped home a rebound for 1-0; and, in the second, Ryan Whitney failing to clear a Ryan Getzalf pass that deflected to an uncovered Cory Perry for the 2-0 lead.

The U.S. had never trailed in the tournament prior to the Toews goal. Was climbing out of that hole for the first time the difference? "Possibly," said winger Bobby Ryan of Team USA. "It trickled through my mind when they up 2-0. I said 'I hope we don't fall apart at the seams here.' But there really wasn't a doubt that we would. This is a group of guys I'll never forget. We battled right to the bitter end."

No shame in that. A star made a play. And Canada achieves its destiny, winning gold on home ice in men's and women's hockey. They own the puck podium.

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