Day 17 - The Game

 

Yes, that's me on the left, with my brother Robin. Without Robin I don't know if I would have seen a single Olympic event, but thanks to his generosity and enthusiasm I had a fantastic Olympic experience and the culmination was being able to watch the Gold Medal Match in Men's Hockey from amazing seats. The game started out well with a goal for Team Canada in the first by Jonathan Toews. Canada increased its lead in the second with a coal by Corey Perry. Throughout this tournament I got the feeling that Canada knew how to play with the "pedal to the metal", but weren't very good at protecting a lead. Five minutes after Perry's goal Ryan Kesler (a Vancouver Canuck, ironically) cut the lead in half. In third the play was much tighter than in the second and with the seconds counting down the Americans pulled their goalie. A scramble left two Americans alone in front of Luongo and Zach Parise scored with 25 seconds left. The crowd was extremely tense during the fifteen minute intermission. I felt pretty good about Team Canada's chances as I thought they played much better when they were trying to score than trying to hold a lead. Sure enough, 7:40 into overtime Sidney Crosby took a pass from Jerome Iginla and scored the winner. The crowd went berserk. Nobody left before the medal presentations, and the party started!