VANCOUVER- When it was over, when the third Olympic Games held on Canadian soil had been brought to a competitive conclusion by a wondrous hockey game, it seemed so obvious.
Sidney Crosby. Of course.
Therein lies the difference between two of the greatest hockey heroes in Canadian history, Paul Henderson and his winning goal at the 1972 Summit Series and Crosby for the flick of the wrists that produced a goal Sunday afternoon that meant everything to his country.
Henderson was a spectacular surprise and the moment found him.
Crosby was no surprise. He was expected to do it. And when it didn’t seem as if he would produce the moment in an Olympic tournament that appeared determined to push him to the rear and make him something other than the main story, he did it anyway.
He found the moment. And therein lies the difference.
Steve Yzerman, who organized Team Canada 2010 and thus laid the blueprint for the country’s record-setting 14th gold medal at these Games, could tell you that.
Yzerman was one of the best Canadian-born players to don skates over the past quarter-century. He won Stanley Cups and Olympic gold medals.
But he never had a moment like the one Crosby produced on Sunday.
“He’s got a little bit of destiny to him,” Yzerman said, shaking his head slowly. “It’s another monumental moment in his career. He’s a special, special guy. Like (Wayne) Gretzky.”
Crosby’s overtime goal in the 68th minute came after a game in which he couldn’t have been described by anyone as the best player on the ice. Not even close. Teammates Rick Nash and Jonathan Toews both had wonderful games. That old smoothie on defence, Scott Niedermayer, too.
On the American side, centre Patrick Kane had been, according to Canadian coach Mike Babcock, “magic,” while U.S. goalie Ryan Miller was named tournament MVP before overtime even began.
Crosby had even botched a clean breakaway with three minutes left in regulation, hurried from behind by a hustling Kane.
Yet Crosby still decided it. An instant after beating U.S. defenceman Brian Rafalski off the boards and shrieking for the puck from linemate Jarome Iginla, Crosby gathered a pass at the left circle slightly behind his left heel and, without looking or even seeing the result, whipped the winner between Miller’s legs.
As though he had been born for just that moment in Halifax on Aug. 7, 1987.
“I dunno about that,” he said, blushing. “But I dreamed of this moment.”
That a remarkable, two-week international sports festival produced this conclusion seemed almost overkill. See, while the suggestion had been for months, years really, that nothing Canada could accomplish at the Vancouver Games would ease the national angst if the men’s hockey team wasn’t victorious, that proved not to be the case at all.
The U.S. could have won the gold-medal game — heck, only Roberto Luongo’s shoulder getting in the way of a Joe Pavelski drive in OT stopped it from happening — and these Olympics would still have been proclaimed a joyous, wondrous success.
The 13 golds that preceded the hockey victory proved there were other sports in which Canadian men and women could not only rise to the challenge, but also capture the imagination of the country. We fell in love with Maelle Ricker, the Hamelin brothers, Jon Montgomery and, of course, Joannie Rochette.
It was a Games that didn’t require a signature moment because before the hockey game even began, that signature had already been provided by the spirit and organizational excellence of the event.
Plus, of course, all those gold medals.
Still, Canadians naturally wanted the hockey gold. Bad. Birthright and all that, although there’s a generation of post-Lake Placid Americans who clearly have started to believe that birthright is shared every bit as much as the continent is.
They sure contested the gold-medal game that way. After Crosby missed his breakaway late, Zach Parise — son of a member of Team Canada ’72 — shocked the arena and the country by tying it 2-2 with 25 seconds left in regulation.
But in a four-on-four OT session played in such a pleasingly aggressive way by both countries that you knew it couldn’t last long, Crosby ended it, and then it was a blur. A mob around Sid the Kid. Shattered Americans receiving their silver medals. Crosby the last Canadian to get his from IOC boss Jacques Rogge. Drew Doughty, then Scott Niedermayer, then Luongo, then Crosby skating around the ice with a giant Canadian flag tied to a 20-foot-long pole.
“We said going into the dressing room after the third that it would just feel better when we scored in overtime,” said Crosby’s linemate, Eric Staal. “It sure did.
“This country loves sport and loves hockey and loves hockey players. For us to be able to come to Vancouver and deliver is pretty awesome.”
One Canadian player after another agreed that Crosby was the appropriate hero.
“He’s the face of hockey in Canada. On this stage, he stepped up and scored a huge goal for Canada,” said Staal. “People are going to remember that. For a long time.”
To attach meaning to such events is always the challenge and often a fool’s pursuit. This wasn’t redemption for Canada, or the end of a drought, or victory over a hated foe.
What this was, in retrospect, was a national drama similar in many ways to ’72, played out over 14 days at the greatest hockey tournament ever held. Over that fortnight, Canada celebrated and agonized on a shift-by-shift basis. New stars emerged. Toews, for example, was seen as a spare part coming in, a player “who might check a bit,” according to Yzerman, and emerged with a heightened reputation in the sport and the country.
A devastating loss to the U.S. in the preliminaries was the turning point. It gave Canada an extra game against Germany to “sort things out,” as Babcock said, and to make a controversial goaltending change to Luongo that proved to be the correct one.
There were no great lessons learned. Just greatness in one athlete confirmed.
Of course.