Defending Their Ice

I'll be totally honest with you: I do not know that much about hockey. But what I do know is that yesterday's gold medal hockey game will not be forgotten. Many have said that only the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" was a better Olympic hockey game than the finale of the 2010 Winter Olympics, and I definitely agree with them. Let's face it: the Canadians broke the record for the most gold medals won at a Winter Olympics with 14. They won gold in what some people call "the Canadian sport". But the Americans won the overall medal count with an Olympic record of 37 medals. Anyway, back to the hockey game.

The much-hyped game was the event everyone watching the Olympics was hoping to see. After the United States shocked Canada with a 5-3 victory a little over a week ago, people could only speculate what would happen in this game. Canada's two early goals sparked the crowd for the home team. With the United States down 2-0 in the second period, things were looking great for the Canadians. But after a goal by US forward Ryan Kesler, the Americans had hope once again. As the time ticked by after the Americans' first goal, the chance for the US to send it into overtime became smaller and smaller. But with less than 25 seconds left in the game, Zach Parise of the United States put the puck in the net. Now that's what I call a momentum shift.

So we head to overtime. Everyone in the stadium is on their feet because they know that the gold medal could be won at any second. What could be better for the Winter Olympics than having the gold medal game for men's hockey go into overtime? The team hosting the Olympics winning on a goal from one of hockey's best players. Just under 8 minutes into overtime, Sidney Crosby scored on a pass from Jerome Iginla, and there it was: game over. Canada 3, US 2. It was quite a run for the Americans, it's just they didn't have enough left in the tank to finish. The young United States team was extremely impressive and exceeded expectations by winning the silver medal. People cheering on the US are probably disappointed because they failed to win gold, but in retrospect, they should be very happy.

I rarely watch hockey, and at most I see the highlights on SportsCenter. However, I was familiar with many of the players on the Canadian roster such as Sidney Crosby, Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley and Roberto Luongo. As for the Americans, only Ryan Miller and Chris Drury were names that I had remembered prior to these Olympic games. The US team had 14 players yet to turn 25. The Canadian team was loaded with NHL All Stars. Nonetheless, the Americans were able to beat them once and outscored them 7-6 in two games. Not bad, not bad at all.