I made the mistake of watching tonight's Gold Medal game between Canada and Russia in the World Junior Hockey Championships. I hadn't watched any of the tournament before now, but so many people asked me about it over the past 24 hours that I decided to give it a look.
After two strong periods, with Team Canada up 3-0, I might've known it was too good to be true. Sure enough, the Russians opened the third period with back-to-back goals, and then rolled from there. A 5-3 defeat when you've held a 3-0 lead in the final period has to qualify as an epic failure, and that's what tonight's debacle feels like.
On the other hand, our juniors have appeared in each of the last 10 Gold Medal games, which is nothing to sneeze at. I guess they just can't win 'em all.
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All in all, they did very well. I think that, as Canadians, we some times feel "entitled" to the Gold Medal.
You're right in that being in the last 10 consecutive gold medal games is a major accomplishment in itself.
We should also remember that the team we had this year wasn't by any stretch as highly touted as some of our teams from the past.
I also think that the build up before and during this tournament was around the assumption that it was going to be Canada and the US in the final...and there was revenge at stake with the US winning gold here in Canada. They beat the US, and in that particular game, they beat them quite handily...maybe it's a case of them feeling like most of what they needed to accomplish (beating the Americans) was done...and ran out of gas 20 minutes too early when playing the Russians.
I have to give credit to the Russians. This is a team that lost their first 2 games (no other team lost their first 2 games and went on to win the tournament). They were down 3-1 in the 3rd to the Finns in the quarter final game and came back to win. They were down by a goal to the Swedes in the semi finals with 3 or so minutes left and came back to win. THEN, after all of that emotion-draining and drama filled action, they're down 5-0 in the 3rd to a team that people sometimes feel are "destined" to win, and put on a show of "dig deep" mentality that was something to see.
Am I happy that Canada lost? Absolutely not. Do I think they deserved to win the Gold Medal? For the first 2 periods, absolutely. Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for our Russian friends, it's a 60 minute game.
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