Photo: Facebook Wall, Vancouver 2010 Olympics Any Canadian worth their mukluks was either in Vancouver or in front of their TV set last night to take in the showdown between the two best teams in Olympic hockey. All across the nation we chewed our nails, sucked in our collective breaths, groaned in disappointment and roared our approval for what seemed like the longest 67 minutes and forty seconds of play the game has ever known.
In the grandstands, thousands of Maple Leafs waved and fluttered in a sea of red and white, declaring our love for our country and our game. Not only was the prettiest medal at stake, but so was an Olympic record for the most gold medals ever won by a single country in the history of the Games. And what’s more, it was all happening on our home turf! We were swept up by a utterly unprecedented patriotic fervour, throwing off our usual self-effacement to openly revel in how far we had come.
A French commentator said of Olympic contenders that ‘it is the marriage of their athleticism and our emotion’ that makes the Games so magical. Heartbreak, pride, bitter disappointment and ecstasy were writ large across these last two weeks and it is all athletes of whom the world is rightly proud. In quintessentially Canadian fashion, although we wanted to think we could do it, and went into the games with uncharacteristic braggadocio, had we not been able to pull the whole thing off – including beating Mother Nature at her own game – we wouldn’t really have been surprised.
When the men of hockey clinched the deal, the country erupted in an explosion of joy. There has never before been, in the history of Canada, an event that has brought the entire nation to its feet and pouring into the streets, from coast to coast to coast. For us, Sidney Crosby fired the shot heard ‘round the world. But his winning goal was more than just the icing on the cake – it was a seminal moment for the Canadian psyche. We took on the world and we won, and we might never be quite the same again.
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