Olympic Ice Hockey - Vancouver 2010 - Canada vs USA
Canada's young super-star Sidney Crosby won gold for his team in the ice hockey final against the United States with an overtime goal, after the USA'a Zach Parise had brought the sides level with just 25 seconds of regular game-time remaining.
Canada looked to be cruising with a 2-0 lead with goals from Toews and Perry, one in each of the first two periods. But the USA pulled back a goal through Kesler in the second period and with barely 25 seconds left on the clock, Parise scored to take the game into sudden-death overtime.
Canada must have been concerned, having been on top for long periods of this game but they could not find the third goal in regular time that would most likely have killed off this gold medal decider. This was, for the most part, because of some excellent goal-tending by USA's Miller, but also because of opportunities squandered by Canada and perhaps most notably Sidney Crosby, who on a break-away attack, botched his goal attempt, virtually handing the puck to Miller.
Canada came out the stronger in the overtime period with Iginla, Crosby and Nash testing Miller. This was somewhat surprising as you felt the momentum should have been with the USA, who suddenly seemed to be floundering.
Then, in a relatively simple move, Iginla fed Crosby who found himself with time and space to guide the puck past Miller for the gold medal winning goal, with 7 minutes and 40 seconds of overtime on the clock.
Crosby and team Canada were ecstatic - Crosby himself is the best Canadian player since Wayne Gretzky but now had Olympic ice hockey gold to show for it - something that Gretzky never succeeded in doing.
Mike Babcock, Canada head coach, praised all his players: "To do it at home with these guys is special...it's a dream come true."
The small consolation for the USA, other than making a game of it, was that Miller (goal tender) was voted the tournament's MVP
by the press - a title well deserved. In spite of Crosby's winning goal effort, he was not at his best.
For the USA it has now been thirty years since they won the ice hockey gold medal when the 1980 team beat Finland at Lake Placid. The wait for Canada was not as long, with their last victory coming in the 2002 final in Salt Lake City where they again beat the USA.
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