Canada Wins Hockey Golds!

Sunday night was one of the best days of my life. After fifty years, Canada's gold-medal winless streak in men's hockey came to an end.

I have never been so happy. My eyes were starting to water when the seconds were slowly expiring. I was in a state of disbelief, thinking: "We won? How could that be? We always screw up." But then I became increasingly aware of what was going on and proceeded to go to Bloor Street and Runnymede (so not even downtown) with my flag and met up with a bunch of other hockey-mad fans and started to stop traffic playing hockey in one of the lanes. The honking could be heard minutes away. I stayed there until about 9:30 when everybody was leaving. It lasted longer downtown where Yonge Street was closed.

To top it off, our women beat rival U.S.A. for the gold, and the meaning of the game could be explained with a look at crying gold medalist captain Cassie Campbell. This year the States were favourites to win because they beat Canada eight straight times in exhibition play, but Canada prevailed. In 1998, Canada was favoured to win, but the U.S. won. It was Canada's only official (not exhibition) loss and it remains so today.

The last time that men's hockey gold came to the Great White North was in February of 1952 when a Senior Amateur Hockey club (as it had to be at the time), the Edmonton Mercurys, represented Canada and won the gold with a record of 7 wins and 1 tie (against the U.S.). Since then the Soviets dominated international hockey (and surprise winners USA in 1960 and 1980). Canada boycotted hockey in the '70s because they thought the Soviets were paying their players and that Canada couldn't send its best, who played in the National Hockey League.

Canada's men's team this year was proclaimed one of the best Olympic team ever iced by Canada or anybody and was destined to win the gold. But nothing was certain, especially after the best Junior team ever iced failed to win the one game that was most important the championship against the Russians.

Canada, one of the best six teams, was given a by to the final round. They started the final round with a loss to Sweden, 5-2, which shocked Canada like the Russians shocked in game one of 1972. Canada then beat lowly Germany by a score of only 3-2 before tying the Czechs 3-3. In the medal round Canada beat Finland 2-1, then Belarus (who had stunned now-favourites Sweden) 7-1, giving them a spot in the gold medal round. There they beat the Americans (who were probably the best American team ever) by a score of 5-2.

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