Coming into the 2014 Sochi Olympics, both the men’s and women’s ice hockey team had high expectations. Both the men and women finished with silver in Vancouver with gold going to the Canadians in both cases.
For the women, it was a rematch from four years ago with a match up against the North American rivals the Canadians. For Canada it was a chance to four-peat with a win. For the USA is was a chance win gold for the first time since the 1998 Nagano Games, the first time women’s ice hockey was an event in the Olympics.
For most of the game it was a goalie duel between the American Jessie Vetter and Canadian Shannon Szabados.
The US was first to strike midway through the second when Meghan Duggan sniped a shot from the top of the circle past Szabados. They added to their lead just two minutes into the third with a power play goal from Alex Carpenter.
With the two goal lead and time winding down, it was looking like America was poised for the gold.
With just about three minutes left in the game, Canadian Brianne Jenner sent a puck off an American defender into the US net.
There’s a saying around hockey that the two-goal lead is “the most dangerous lead in hockey.” For the US this proved to be true. With just 55 seconds left Marie-Phillip Poulin tied the game up.
What looked like an American gold had crumbled into a do-or-die overtime period. Unfortunately for the US, penalties caught up with them. At 8:10 of the overtime period Marie-Phillip Poulin scored her second goal of the game, a power play goal, to bury the Americans and secure the gold.
Just one day later American and Canadian men’s teams faced off in the semifinals. The Americans were also looking for revenge after an overtime loss to the Canadians four years ago.
Both sides were overflowing with offensive talent. All the players in this game are current NHLers.
The US came out hard in the first ten minutes of the game getting good scoring chances and playing tight, hard hockey.
While the skill and talent was certainly there for the US, Canada’s defensive game started to take away America’s chances.
Canada’s defensemen were definitely their trump card, leading their countrymen to the semifinals. Their fusion of offensive and defense were a deadly combination.
It was just under two minutes into the second period when Canadian Jamie Benn tipped the puck past American goaltender Johnathan Quick.
This one goal lead was all Canadian goalie Carey Price needed as the final buzzer sounded. Price earned the shutout, who incidentally shut the Swedish out 3-0 to lead Canada’s men to the second straight gold, and sending their rivals into the bronze medal match up.
If losing one-nothing to their chief rival wasn’t bad enough, a lackluster performance against Team Finland saw beat the USA for the bronze 5-0. A US team that had just scored 20 goals in its previous four games was shutout in two consecutive games.
For two teams that expectations we set so high for, falling so short has to be heartbreaking. At least the women were able to medal, but silver is hard to take after coming so far.
“It [the Olympics] only comes around once every four years so it’s kind of hard to swallow right now. It’s a tough one that’s for sure.” Jocelyne Lamourex said of their loss.
All the men can do is say they tried their hardest and look forward to the last 20 or so games of their NHL season.
“That’s the disappointing thing. If we played our butts off and were ousted by better teams you can live with that,” David Backes said. “But to have less than stellar performances in a tournament like this where it’s and done, you’re playing for your country and there really should be nothing held back. It’s going to be a sour, sour feeling for a while.”
