28 February
Sidney Crosby, the poster boy of Canadian ice hockey, has this evening scored the overtime goal against the USA to win his nation the gold medal match at the Vancouver Olympics. The 22-year-old captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins is already a national hero and will this evening take on a God-like status in Vancouver, or so hockey fans will make it seem.
Canada’s victory – the one they would have swapped an awful lot for at the start of the Games – gave the host nation their 14th gold medal of the Olympics. No host, indeed no nation, has ever won as many as 14 golds in one Games. Already some commentators in Canada are calling today the greatest day in Canada’s sporting history.
A New York Times live hockey blog was running here during the match.
.
UPDATE ON 1 MARCH, midday UK time, early hours Vancouver Canada time.
A later report in the NY Daily News is here, while this short blog by that piece’s author, Filip Bondy, about leaving the Games, amused us.
The magnitude of this story in Canadian-US sports rivalry is merely hinted at by the 10,315 articles in the past 12 hours alone on Crosby’s role.
