Over the five Thursday’s of December Riding the Pine will take a look back at the year that was 2010, revealing each week the best of a different category. Last week was the worst of 2010, this final week I look at the year’s best moment.
In any year Canada hosts the games, that will almost always be the predetermined most memorable sporting event.
But there was one moment that defined the games this year and in essence defined the year: Crosby’s golden goal.
There were other moments in the running, like the fallout of Jim Joyce’s blown call that ruined Armando Galarraga’s perfect game — it was a true showing of sportsmanship on both sides that could easily have been a black mark in baseball history. Even from the Olympics there was Canadian skeleton pilot Jon Montgomery’s beer fueled celebration in Whistler. There was one last run at a Grey Cup for Anthony Calvillo and Ben Cahoon. Even Butler’s Hoosier-esque run in March Madness, coming within a last second desperation rim-out of a miracle title. Or Phil Mickelson slipping on the green jacket after winning the Masters in front of his wife Amy who was battling breast cancer.
But nothing quite held our attention now and in future years like Sid the Kid’s already legendary play with Jarome Iginla off the boards in overtime in Vancouver.
I fully believe that if Canada had lost that game that the Olympics by and large would be considered a failure, despite large success in other events. And by the same token they would be deemed a success if we won gold in men’s hockey but were shut out in every other event.
As simple as it may be, hockey is what matters in Canada.
Don’t get me wrong, the success of the rest of the Canadian Olympic team was a great story and even got my nod as the Team of the Year. But that served merely as an appetizer for the final event of the games: hockey’s gold medal game between Canada and our arch rivals to the south.
This was the main course.
This was more than just simply the heavy favourites winning the gold as we always knew we would.
No this was a hockey power with a shattered confidence scrambling to maintain it’s foothold as the game’s pre-eminent player.
To set the table, Canada wasn’t necessarily everyone’s favourite heading into the games. First Team Canada was outright embarrassed at the last Olympics in 2006 in Torino, and criticized for not caring enough after finishing seventh. There were also just as many picking the mighty Russians to upset the home team for gold — they did beat Canada, after all in the previous IIHF world championship final 2-1, and boasted many of the game’s top players like Alex Ovechkin. Canada had also just lost it’s tight grip on the World Junior Championship, falling to the Americans in the gold medal game, ending Canada’s title run at five straight.
Our confidence didn’t exactly grow in the preliminary round.
After opening with a predictable 8-0 win over Norway, a shootout was needed to beat lowly Switzerland 3-2. That was followed by a disastrous 5-3 loss to the U.S.
The nation was put on high alert. Not just gold was in doubt but even a medal may be a reach at this point.
But after dispatching Germany 8-2 in a qualifying game and then sending the Russians home with their tail between their legs with a 7-3 whipping in the quarter-final all was right again — for the night anyway.
That momentum nearly came to a crashing halt when Canada blew a 3-0 lead to the surprising Slovaks in the semifinal the next night and needed a huge Roberto Luongo save on Pavol Dimitra to preserve a 3-2 win and set up a rematch with States in the final.
Canada once again took a 2-0 lead but couldn’t close the deal in regulation.
Ryan Kesler cut the lead to 2-1 at 12:44 of the second period, and then panic set in when Zach Parise tied it up with 25 seconds remaining in the third.
The knot in the nation’s throat was huge. The unthinkable was about to happen.
That is until Crosby came off the cycle in the American’s corner to the right of goalie Ryan Miller, calling for the pass and slipping the winner home with 2:20 to go in overtime.
It was an innocuous looking play but allowed Canada to release that pent up tension in one giant coast-to-coast celebration.
The game broke all of Canada’s broadcasting records with 85 per cent of the country tuning in at one time or another. That’s 26.4 million viewers in a nation of about 34 million people.
It was a Paul Henderson moment for this generation.
And without a doubt the biggest moment of 2010.
jaldrich@www.reddeeradvocate.com
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