After Canadian women win 3rd straight hockey gold, nation hopes men can make it a sweep

Canada claims 3rd straight gold in women’s hockey

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Hayley Wickenheiser and her talented teammates got Canada halfway to its wildest Olympic dreams with grit, gusto and goaltending.

Before heading off to celebrate her third gold medal with her 9-year-old son, the captain urged the men’s team to make it a clean Canadian sweep for a perfect Olympic finish in the home of hockey.

“I know we’ll be rooting for them every step of the way,” Wickenheiser said. “To win gold on both sides, it couldn’t be any better for Canada. That would just be indescribable.”

Marie-Philip Poulin scored two goals, Shannon Szabados made 28 saves, and Canada rolled through its American rivals, 2-0, to win the gold medal in women’s hockey for the third straight Olympics Thursday night in front of a raucous Vancouver crowd ringing cowbells and frantically waving thousands of maple leaf flags.

After Poulin’s two first-period scores, the Canadians dominated every aspect of the biggest game in this young sport, earning their 15th straight Olympic victory. When time expired and the Canadians skated into a massive pile-up near their goal, several cheering fans threw flags over the glass to the players, who wrapped them around their shoulders like superheroes’ capes.

They’re super, all right — unbeaten in Olympic play since 1998, they outscored the field in Vancouver by a combined 48-2. They were constantly just a bit better than the Americans, the only team in Vancouver with even a chance of standing up to the big, talented bullies from up north.

Much of the men’s team, which faces Slovakia in the semifinals Friday night, watched the game from press box seats above the ice, while Michael J. Fox, Wayne Gretzky, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and several Canadian gold medalists from other sports were in the stands.

“We kept turning to each other after the game and saying how much we love having the Olympics in Canada,” four-time Olympian Jennifer Botterill said. “This country has supported us any time we’ve played, and today was an amazing example of that.”

Earlier, Finland won the bronze medal, beating Sweden 3-2 in overtime.

Canada got two first-period goals from Poulin, the super-speedy 18-year-old forward from Quebec who claims she felt no Olympic pressure, and kept most of the game in the Americans’ end. Their smooth, graceful goalie did the rest, with Szabados capping her first Olympics with flawless netminding in a win that sometimes seemed just as one-sided as Canada’s 18-0 victory over Slovakia to open the Olympics 12 days ago.

“We commit. We work hard,” said Wickenheiser, Canada’s most famous female athlete. “It’s up to the rest of the world to catch up. This is not as easy as it looks, trust me.”

Let others debate the viability of an Olympic sport with two such dominant powers on top. For the Canadians, it was time to celebrate.

Long after the crowds had gone, 14 players returned to the ice and toasted each other with bottles of champagne and cans of beer. Haley Irwin poured a drink into Tessa Bonhomme’s mouth and tournament MVP Meghan Agosta and others enjoyed cigars, the smoke wafting up into the stands.

Poulin, who’s still a few weeks too young to drink legally in British Columbia, was seen holding a beer. The drinking age in Alberta, where the team trains, is 18.

Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said he wasn’t aware of the celebration until informed by an AP reporter.

“If that’s the case, that is not good. It is not what we want to see,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good promotion of sport values. If they celebrate in the changing room, that’s one thing, but not in public.

In a statement released late Thursday, Hockey Canada apologized.

“The members of Team Canada apologize if their on-ice celebrations, after fans had left the building, have offended anyone,” the statement said. “In the excitement of the moment, the celebration left the confines of our dressing room and shouldn’t have. The team regrets that its gold medal celebration may have caused the IOC or COC any embarrassment.”

Jessie Vetter made 27 saves for the Americans, whose offense evaporated in front of Szabados and the Canadian defense. The potent power play that produced 13 goals in the last four games went 0-for-6, and the Canadians consistently won most of the battles in a physical, grinding game.

“It stings when expectations are high and you come up short,” U.S. coach Mark Johnson said. “It hurts, but certainly I think we are better off than we were 3½ years ago. They are coming home with a silver medal. That’s not a bad thing.”

Agosta, voted the tournament MVP for her Olympic-record nine-goal performance, draped a flag over herself and Sarah Vaillancourt. Coach Melody Davidson congratulated her assistants and then shared a long hug with a team manager who lifted her off the ground, her heels in the air.

Several Americans were in tears, including four-time Olympians Angela Ruggiero and Jenny Potter, who had her two children on the ice with her for the medal presentation. The Canadian crowd raised a chant of “U-S-A!” while the players got their bouquets.

“When you give your whole life to something and you come up short, as a team, it’s just awful,” Ruggiero said, choking back tears. “It’s a little different than playing on the men’s side. You really give your life to it. You make lots of sacrifices to win the gold medal.”

The only matchup that matters in women’s hockey was set up in Monday’s semifinals, when the Americans routed Sweden and Canada clobbered Finland to finish two dominant runs through the field. Neither team won a game by fewer than five goals.

“This rivalry will never end,” Szabados said. “It will keep going and going.”

Canada’s Jayna Hefford predicted the gold-medal match would be the best game in women’s hockey history. It might have been — but only for the Canadians, who didn’t waste their once-in-a-lifetime chance to win gold medals on home ice.

The Canada Hockey Place crowd was hopping from 45 minutes before Potter and Wickenheiser took the opening faceoff, with competing chants of “Go Canada Go!” and “U-S-A!” reverberating through the rink.

“I looked up in the stands and saw a sign that said, ‘Proud to be Canadian,’ and that’s what I am today,” Szabados said. “My teammates were unbelievable today. We played a great game, and this is an incredible moment.”

Both teams took early penalties, and the Americans failed to score on a two-man advantage for 39 seconds. Moments later, Poulin flung a quick pass from Botterill through a corridor of four U.S. defenders for the teenager’s fourth Olympic goal.

Poulin did it again 2:55 later during 4-on-4 play, collecting Agosta’s faceoff win and ripping a shot that was simply too quick for Vetter to see. Poulin’s face shield couldn’t conceal her broad grin when she watched the replay on the overhead scoreboard.

“I can’t believe that even happened,” Poulin said. “I still can’t believe I have that medal around my neck.”