That sudden wind you felt from the north yesterday afternoon? That was just the entire Canadian nation exhaling at about 230pm Pacific Time….
I know that the appellations “best game ever”, or “game of the century”, or whatever variation you happen to prefer, is WAY overused. That said, it’s hard to resist the temptation to break one of them out after yesterday’s US-Canada game. Yes, you could look at the fact that Canada won the gold medal with a 3-2 overtime victory. You could do that, but you’d be entirely missing the point of what truly was one of the best hockey games I’ve ever had the pleasure to be exposed to. Was it The Best Game EVER? Well, I remember being in a hotel room in Zagreb, Croatia, watching the gold medal game in Lillehammer, Norway between Canada and Sweden. That game went to a shootout with the Swedes winning. Peter Forsberg became a national hero, and his winning shot even graced a Swedish stamp. At the time, that was a pretty good candidate for Game of The Century….
Hockey in the US may be a tough sell north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but there are places where Hockey isn’t just a sport, or even a passion. I grew up near the Canadian border, and even though Minnesota call itself the “State of Hockey”, in Canada it’s something closer to “Life IS Hockey”. How serious was yesterday’s game in Canada? How about serious enough that the Vancouver Police Department asked liquor stores in downtown Vancouver to close at 2pm. Apparently, the police feared the potential carnage with thousands of well-lubricated Canadians prowling the downtown area…and who could have blamed them?
I heard several analysts say prior to yesterday’s game that the reason Canada would win was simple. The US wanted to win. Canada NEEDED to win. Imagine going into a game with the weight of an entire nation on your shoulders, knowing that if you lost you’d be considered a failure. Credit the Americans for putting up a helluva fight. Playing in Canada against the best hockey team in the world, in front of 20,000 frenzied zealots all wearing Team Canada hockey sweaters…and they still almost pulled off the upset. If Sydney Crosby hadn’t won the game in overtime, you might well have seen an entire nation suffer a collective nervous breakdown. Now Crosby has become an instant national hero, a la Paul Henderson and Mario Lemieux. Canadian parents will be telling their children and grandchildren where they were when Crosby scored. Yes…it was kind of a big deal….
Sure, I’m disappointed the US lost, but it was hard to argue with a game as sublime as this one was. Though some might disagree, I think the gold medal game- and the entire Olympic hockey tournament- should be taken as proof that the game can and will thrive without fighting. Granted, comparing the Olympic tournament to the NHL has a certain apples-and-oranges quality to it, but hockey and fighting aren’t- and shouldn’t be considered to be- joined at the hip.
It was refreshing to watch the top talent in the world- both male and female- play the game at the highest level in perhaps the entire history of the game. The fact that there were no fights just made it that much better and far more enjoyable. If Gary Bettman could remove his anterior from his posterior long enough to recognize that the NHL could learn something from the Olympic hockey tournament, the NHL might become more than a minor regional distraction in the US.
So, in the battle of Good and Evil…yes, Evil triumphed- but not by much. As an American, I’m disappointed. As a hockey fan, I was on the edge of my seat. Best game ever? Who knows? If it wasn’t, it certainly wasn’t far from it, eh?
Now comes the fun part, when opponents for the past two weeks go back to being teammates tonight. Imagine being in the Pittsburgh Penguins dressing room with Brooks Orpik, who played for the US, and Sidney Crosby, who scored the winning goal for Canada. Or in Chicago, with American Patrick Kane and Canadian Jonathan Toews, both of whom scored for their country yesterday. Think that’s not going to take some getting used to??
Game on, eh?
