VANCOUVER — Shannon Szabados made Melody Davidson look awfully smart Thursday and now hockey coaches across the country just might take their sweet time picking their starting goalie every game.
Davidson, the Canadian coach with a penchant for keeping quiet about who is minding the net for her each game, wouldn’t come clean publicly about Szabados getting the call against the archrival Americans in the Olympic gold-medal affair until game time.
It seemed to work as the Edmonton native was absurdly good, making 28 saves in leading Canada to a 2-0 win — and its third straight Olympic gold — before a crowd in excess of 16,000 at Canada Hockey Place.
“My teammates were unbelievable today,” said the 23-year-old stopper. “We played a great game and this is an incredible moment.”
Szabados’ best save may have come at 18:48 of the second period, when she flung her glove hand around behind her and knocked away at a Kelli Stack chance.
“It was unbelievable,” said forward Jayne Hefford. “I don’t know if it’s hit us yet. This year and the Olympics has been incredible.”
Szabados, the youngest of Canada’s three netminders, didn’t get a single minute of ice time at the IIHF world championship in April, as Davidson opted to go with veterans Kim St-Pierre and Charline Labonte. Canada lost the final there 4-1, although Labonte was named the tournament’s top goalie.
Davidson’s game plan gave Canada its eighth gold medal of these Games.
“It’s so special, I don’t know if it has sunk in yet,” said veteran Hayley Wickenheiser. “You grow up in Canada, you know the expectations.
“Just to win on home ice, the crowd, the family. . .”
Szabados wasn’t the only youngster shining for the home side Thursday.
Forward Marie-Philip Poulin, 18, had both goals for the winners.
There was talk heading in that — given the improvement in both the Canadians’ and Americans’ games — this could be the greatest women’s match ever. It was far from a how-to video technique wise, but it was an example of grit.
Canada killed off all five American power plays, including a lengthy pair of five-on-three advantages. The U.S. had come into the game with a man-advantage unit working at 59 per cent (13-of-22) in the tournament.
Jessie Vetter, who had backstopped the Americans to wins in the last two world championships, made 26 saves for the U.S.
“It’s unbelievable in front of fans, family and friends to win,” said defenceman Carla MacLeod. “We wanted this really bad.”
Canada got on the board at 13:55 of the first, just moments after killing off back-to-back penalties. Jennifer Botterill took the puck along the side boards and into the corner and found Poulin wide open in the slot for a one-timer. She beat Vetter high to the glove side.
They went up 2-0 at 16:50 of the first as Poulin jumped on a loose puck in front after winning a faceoff on a four-on-four situation.
The Canadians had a couple of chances to take a 3-0 lead, but Jayna Hefford missed an empty net at 7:16 of the third period and Vetter stoned Cherie Piper on a backhand in front of the net seven minutes later.
The Americans had a glorious chance to get on the board midway through the first frame, when penalties to Gina Kingsbury and Catherine Ward gave the U.S. a 40-second five-on-three advantage. The Canadians foiled it thanks in large part to a Hayley Wickenheiser blocked shot on a Lisa Chesson blast from the point, and a glove grab by Szabados on Caitlin Cahow.
They had their second lengthy, five-on-three advantage in the second period when Hefford, at 2:35, and Becky Kellar, at 2:58, took back-to-back delay of game penalties for shooting the puck over the glass. The Americans were stopped again, this time with help on shot blocks by Piper and Sarah Vaillancourt.
The Canadians looked disjointed and nervous early on. They had trouble getting open for passes, and, when they did manage to find some free space, pucks were fired into feet. They had two early power plays and mustered very little.
But all they really needed on this night was the play of Szabados.
“She stood tall for them and they did what they had to do,” said U.S. blue-liner Kerry Weiland. “All the credit to Canada.”
DiManno: Magical skate ends with bronze for Rochette
VANCOUVER - That’s our girl, our Jo, and she made a nation achingly, lovingly, proud. Her heavy heart cracked open for all to see, filling ours with love and admiration.
Fatigue showing in jumps where she fought just about every landing, a kiss blown heavenward to her mother at the end. And, when it was all over, an Olympic bronze medal for Joannie Rochette.
Yet there could have been co-gold awarded on this night: One for the best figure skater in the women’s competition and one for the most valiant performance by a young lady under unimaginable duress.
And if there were a couple of bobbles, some omissions that made the difference between bronze and silver for Rochette, it doesn’t matter, really, not given everything the 24-year-old overcame here, with the world watching.
“I feel proud and the result didn’t matter, but I’m happy to be on the podium,” Rochette said.
“That was my goal coming here. It’s been a lifetime project with my Mom and we achieved that.”
This was a different Rochette than the skater whose career has been documented by national and international media for the past half-dozen years. Where once she was emotionally fragile, her cluttered mind often overtaking muscle-memory so that stumbles occurred in front of judges, the body torqued by psychological stress, Rochette has suddenly evolved into a skater of internal resilience and external poise.
But, oh, what a horrible way to arrive at this competitive composure: The discovery that, residing in her soul all along was this tough cookie who could rise to the Olympic challenge in what has been the worst week of her life.
The tragedy that hit Rochette last Sunday — her mother Therese dying from a massive heart attack only hours after landing in Vancouver, excited about watching her only child reach for the moon on this global stage, a medal well within her grasp — had left everyone stricken, casting about for how best to help the grieving girl through this trauma.
Teammates, coach, her own personal psychologist, her boyfriend, even her father, Normand, who has stayed so close by Joannie’s side throughout this ordeal, putting daughter ahead of his own deep mourning — all could only do so much.
Nobody can carry your grief for you. All of us must bear it on our own.
Somehow, Rochette has managed to do that this week, finding her niche on the ice, probably the only place, during those minutes of competition, where the pain is at bay. But when her Samson and Delilah routine ended last night and she held her closing position, it was clearly right back ripping her up inside. Fewer tears spilled than at the conclusion of the short program on Tuesday, but poignantly did Rochette put her fingers to her mouth, kiss them and send that kiss aloft.
Throughout the routine, the audience had held its breath — as surely did the whole country that’s adopted her — those inside the Pacific Coliseum leaning forward as if to gather this brave, young, hurting woman in their arms.
Her final combined score was 202.64.
For staying in Vancouver instead of returning to tiny Ile Dupas, Que., far from the gawking public and media, for dedicating this Olympic performance to her mother, for acquitting herself so beautifully under pressure and with lament in her court, Rochette — reigning world silver medallist, six years straight Canadian champion, fifth at the Games in Turin — has earned more memorable laurels than anything she could hang around her neck or put away in a velvet-lined box.
She is a heroine.
It was, for the other top women who performed so brilliantly, a somewhat unfortunately anti-climactic accomplishment, at least in these environs, in this country.
A night that belonged to Rochette — not at all the way she would have wanted it or has visualized it these past four years — was shared on the emotional periphery with those long-time rivals, Kim Yu-Na and Mao Asado, the yin and yang of elite women skaters in this era.
Kim, who trains in Toronto under the tutelage of Brian Orser — earning her quasi-Canadian status and, in fact, a precious privacy that is no longer available in South Korea, where she’s a super-star celebrity and can only venture outside in hat-and-glasses disguise — was as transcendently extraordinary as predicted, smashing her own world-record score, with an unbelievable mark of 228.56. First figure skating gold for South Korea and a first Olympic gold for an Orser-trained skater.
Japan’s Asada, with her two triple Axels — no other woman on the planet is doing them — caught her heel and popped a jump. Coming into the final in second spot after the short, those glitches opened the door to Rochette. But she was clearly just too physically fatigued, too emotionally exhausted, to skate through it.
So, bronze, and nothing remotely disappointing in that.
As for teammate Cynthia Phaneuf, well, Cleopatra’s barge sank off the coast here and she was on it, falling to the ice on a triple Lutz. Clearly discombobulated, the 22-year-old had further jump problems after then, though scoring Level 4s for gorgeous spins and a spiral sequence, finishing a gratifying 12th at her first Winter Games.
“Disappointed,” the native of Contrecouer, Que., admitted. “I was skating a lot more consistently in practice. Even if it’s my best score internationally, I know I can do better than that.”
The attractive young woman has had an odd career. She came out of nowhere, a coltish 15-year-old, to win the Canadian championship in Edmonton in 2004, wresting the title from Jennifer Robinson. But, a year later, Rochette took it from her and never gave it back, six years and counting now as national title-holder.
Phaneuf also had to contend with a stress fracture in her right ankle and hip, then a knee injury that kept her out of competition for 18 months. A growth spurt also meant she lost her centre of gravity; basically had to learn the jumps all over again. For two seasons, she got only low wattage international assignments from Skate Canada.
“I’ve always said I’ve had two careers: One that went very fast and another one that is going one step at a time. This is really what I’m doing right now. One step at a time, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. If it continues like that, I’ll end up where I want to be.”
Phaneuf will go to worlds in Turin next month and intends to compete next season, but has difficult seeing beyond that.
There is one objective that remains, however: “My long-term goal is win the national title again.”
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