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Win over Canada has Americans believing
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
8 hours, 36 minutes ago
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – They had flooded downtown in red sweaters, filled the streets with Canadian flags and held up signs all over the arena declaring things like “Our Home. Our Game” and “Canada is Hockey Country.”
It wasn’t just a hockey game the United States won here 5-3 Sunday. For the Canadians, it was supposed to be a moment to reaffirm national sporting pride, to show their dominance in their obsession. This was Super Sunday here, hailed as a hockey holiday.
It turns out it was the other side of the border that proved its mettle.
Yes, they can play a little hockey in America too.
“We know we can beat anyone now,” defenseman Brian Rafalski said.
Team USA isn’t the most talented club in the Olympics. It isn’t the deepest or the swiftest or the most skilled. Their coach, Ron Wilson, still is trying to sell the idea that five or six other clubs are better – “I think Canada is the best team,” he said, even after the victory.
It’s what makes this group of players that much more endearing. Here’s a team for America to believe in, a group of well-paid professionals playing with the same all-out, all-in attitude of the college heroes that USA Hockey celebrates best. This isn’t just some collection of all-stars, it’s a team constructed from a blueprint that tried to value heart and tenacity over pure talent.
Team USA general manager Brian Burke wanted big men who would kill in the corner, young players who wouldn’t stop attacking and hungry guys who would play their role and relish the chance to come out of nowhere and shock the hockey world.
Burke wanted lines of players with a grinder mentality, defensive pairings with a physical presence and, of course, one sensational goaltender in Ryan Miller.
Three games, three victories and one dead-silent downtown Vancouver later and the U.S. is on to the quarterfinals as the top seed in the tourney. The U.S. will play the winner of Switzerland-Belarus on Wednesday.
“Before the game we just kept saying, ‘go out and have fun,’ ” Ryan Kesler said. “We came in as the underdog and all the pressure was on Canada.”
Kesler offered the symbolic play of the game when the Livonia, Mich., native chased a drifting puck in the final minute with the U.S. clinging to a desperate 4-3 lead. With Canadian Corey Perry about to control it, Kesler made a dramatic, reach-around swipe, knocking the puck into the open net and silencing, at last, a rocking Canada Hockey Place.
“I was just trying to whack it,” Kesler said. “That’s hockey.”
And that was how the Americans beat the Canadians, with effort, hustle and resourcefulness.
Team USA celebrates their 5-3 win over Canada.
Kesler is your prototype on this team – 6-foot-2, 205-pounds of physicality you don’t want to bump into along the boards. In a tournament filled with mega-stars, he’s one of the semi-anonymous Americans, never scoring more than 26 goals in an NHL season. Make no mistake, he’s a good player. But he isn’t Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin.
Kesler followed goals by Chris Drury, a big-game performer from Connecticut, and one by Jamie Langenbrunner, a power forward out of Minnesota who likewise never scored 30 or more in a NHL season.
Then there were the two goals from Rafalski, who made so many plays big and small that Wilson even pulled out the ultimate comparison – “[He has] Mike Eruzione-type qualities,” the American coach said. Rafalski is your central-casting glue guy, about as forgotten as a three-time Stanley Cup winner can be. Even playing professionally in his hometown of Detroit, he’s an in-the-shadows kind of player.
“He’s just a quiet, unassuming guy that does his job,” said Canadian coach Mike Babcock, who loves Rafalski when he coaches him on the Detroit Red Wings but could only shake his head as the tables turned Sunday. “He’s not the guy you talk about.”
And Team USA wasn’t a team you talked about coming into this thing. They were the proverbial dark horse, sitting quietly as everyone fawned over the Russians and Canadians, neither of whom survived pool play unbeaten and now will probably stage their “Dream Final” in the meager quarterfinals, where one will be knocked out.
Everyone gets the Americans now, everyone understands what they’re about. Canada dominated long stretches of play, dramatically outshot and out-chanced the U.S., yet it never led and spent most of the third period scrambling to climb out of two-goal holes. Anyway, it’s not about how pretty you pass the puck.
The Americans have a locker room full of leaders, a group built on their level-headedness and humility. To a man they kept saying nothing has been won except a first-round bye. They repeated that despite the intensity of the USA-Canada rivalry, beating Canada in Canada isn’t the ultimate goal – winning gold is.
Miller even tried to claim it was just another game. “We just played against some boys in red uniforms.” He’d been brilliant, of course, the East Lansing, Mich., native controlling the game with critical save after critical save, 42 in all including some legend-making stops in the frantic final minutes.
“He was the best I’ve ever seen,” Kesler said.
Miller had been out in Vancouver with his family the last couple nights, where the streets were full of Olympic revelers who didn’t let him pass without comment. Canadian-style comment, of course, but it was comment still.
“It was the most polite trash talk I’ve ever heard,” Miller said. “They’d say, ‘That’s Ryan Miller, the American goaltender. Yeah! Go Canada!’”
Go Canada? That was the trash-talk?
“‘Go Canada.’ They were very polite.”
Then Miller broke into a grin. Polite or not, this wasn’t just any old game. He’s heard from Canadians his whole life about how the players are better here, how the fans more passionate here, how the sport is simply superior here.
Now he and his guys had rolled into the heart of hockey and stunned a country, silenced a city and left their friends in red and white dealing with hyper-critical fans and a goaltending controversy for the media to feast on.
Forget the just-another-game bit. This one felt great, a bunch of hype silenced in 60 minutes flat.
“You could say it did feel a little bit [better],” Miller finally admitted with a laugh.
Yes, just a little bit for the suddenly formidable Americans.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/va...s?slug=dw-usacanada022110&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
8 hours, 36 minutes ago
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – They had flooded downtown in red sweaters, filled the streets with Canadian flags and held up signs all over the arena declaring things like “Our Home. Our Game” and “Canada is Hockey Country.”
It wasn’t just a hockey game the United States won here 5-3 Sunday. For the Canadians, it was supposed to be a moment to reaffirm national sporting pride, to show their dominance in their obsession. This was Super Sunday here, hailed as a hockey holiday.
It turns out it was the other side of the border that proved its mettle.
Yes, they can play a little hockey in America too.
“We know we can beat anyone now,” defenseman Brian Rafalski said.
Team USA isn’t the most talented club in the Olympics. It isn’t the deepest or the swiftest or the most skilled. Their coach, Ron Wilson, still is trying to sell the idea that five or six other clubs are better – “I think Canada is the best team,” he said, even after the victory.
It’s what makes this group of players that much more endearing. Here’s a team for America to believe in, a group of well-paid professionals playing with the same all-out, all-in attitude of the college heroes that USA Hockey celebrates best. This isn’t just some collection of all-stars, it’s a team constructed from a blueprint that tried to value heart and tenacity over pure talent.
Team USA general manager Brian Burke wanted big men who would kill in the corner, young players who wouldn’t stop attacking and hungry guys who would play their role and relish the chance to come out of nowhere and shock the hockey world.
Burke wanted lines of players with a grinder mentality, defensive pairings with a physical presence and, of course, one sensational goaltender in Ryan Miller.
Three games, three victories and one dead-silent downtown Vancouver later and the U.S. is on to the quarterfinals as the top seed in the tourney. The U.S. will play the winner of Switzerland-Belarus on Wednesday.
“Before the game we just kept saying, ‘go out and have fun,’ ” Ryan Kesler said. “We came in as the underdog and all the pressure was on Canada.”
Kesler offered the symbolic play of the game when the Livonia, Mich., native chased a drifting puck in the final minute with the U.S. clinging to a desperate 4-3 lead. With Canadian Corey Perry about to control it, Kesler made a dramatic, reach-around swipe, knocking the puck into the open net and silencing, at last, a rocking Canada Hockey Place.
“I was just trying to whack it,” Kesler said. “That’s hockey.”
And that was how the Americans beat the Canadians, with effort, hustle and resourcefulness.
Team USA celebrates their 5-3 win over Canada.
Kesler is your prototype on this team – 6-foot-2, 205-pounds of physicality you don’t want to bump into along the boards. In a tournament filled with mega-stars, he’s one of the semi-anonymous Americans, never scoring more than 26 goals in an NHL season. Make no mistake, he’s a good player. But he isn’t Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin.
Kesler followed goals by Chris Drury, a big-game performer from Connecticut, and one by Jamie Langenbrunner, a power forward out of Minnesota who likewise never scored 30 or more in a NHL season.
Then there were the two goals from Rafalski, who made so many plays big and small that Wilson even pulled out the ultimate comparison – “[He has] Mike Eruzione-type qualities,” the American coach said. Rafalski is your central-casting glue guy, about as forgotten as a three-time Stanley Cup winner can be. Even playing professionally in his hometown of Detroit, he’s an in-the-shadows kind of player.
“He’s just a quiet, unassuming guy that does his job,” said Canadian coach Mike Babcock, who loves Rafalski when he coaches him on the Detroit Red Wings but could only shake his head as the tables turned Sunday. “He’s not the guy you talk about.”
And Team USA wasn’t a team you talked about coming into this thing. They were the proverbial dark horse, sitting quietly as everyone fawned over the Russians and Canadians, neither of whom survived pool play unbeaten and now will probably stage their “Dream Final” in the meager quarterfinals, where one will be knocked out.
Everyone gets the Americans now, everyone understands what they’re about. Canada dominated long stretches of play, dramatically outshot and out-chanced the U.S., yet it never led and spent most of the third period scrambling to climb out of two-goal holes. Anyway, it’s not about how pretty you pass the puck.
The Americans have a locker room full of leaders, a group built on their level-headedness and humility. To a man they kept saying nothing has been won except a first-round bye. They repeated that despite the intensity of the USA-Canada rivalry, beating Canada in Canada isn’t the ultimate goal – winning gold is.
Miller even tried to claim it was just another game. “We just played against some boys in red uniforms.” He’d been brilliant, of course, the East Lansing, Mich., native controlling the game with critical save after critical save, 42 in all including some legend-making stops in the frantic final minutes.
“He was the best I’ve ever seen,” Kesler said.
Miller had been out in Vancouver with his family the last couple nights, where the streets were full of Olympic revelers who didn’t let him pass without comment. Canadian-style comment, of course, but it was comment still.
“It was the most polite trash talk I’ve ever heard,” Miller said. “They’d say, ‘That’s Ryan Miller, the American goaltender. Yeah! Go Canada!’”
Go Canada? That was the trash-talk?
“‘Go Canada.’ They were very polite.”
Then Miller broke into a grin. Polite or not, this wasn’t just any old game. He’s heard from Canadians his whole life about how the players are better here, how the fans more passionate here, how the sport is simply superior here.
Now he and his guys had rolled into the heart of hockey and stunned a country, silenced a city and left their friends in red and white dealing with hyper-critical fans and a goaltending controversy for the media to feast on.
Forget the just-another-game bit. This one felt great, a bunch of hype silenced in 60 minutes flat.
“You could say it did feel a little bit [better],” Miller finally admitted with a laugh.
Yes, just a little bit for the suddenly formidable Americans.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/va...s?slug=dw-usacanada022110&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
