Canadian disclaimer....
It was a great win for Canada because this same US team had beaten them badly a few days ago. And done it with the play looking the same, the canadians passing well and shooting well but the US hanging in there with grit and hitting hard and the goalie standing on his head.You could see the canadians had adjusted to the US goal tender, they were taking shots from a distance and putting them in the air, in the first game the US goalie stopped everything on the ice, and the canadians never seemed to adjust to that.
To me the story of this game was security, I have friends that were involved and to have nothing go wrong is fantastic, but it cost a fortune. I know an RCMP guy who pulled 13 hour shifts at an intersection in Whistler without relief for the whole games, every day. And the US winter program coming to maturity. Canada still held on but the rest of the world was pretty much raped by the US medal haul. The whole difference between 7? US medals in Calgary and 35? in vancouver came out of European pockets. And they love winter olympics. Maybe it was just a rare group of US athletes this time around, but I don't think so, I think they are getting very good at these winter sports. And have a very good program in place.