Olympic report
Hockey Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal gave Canada the gold medal in hockey, beating the United States 3-2. It is Canada’s second men’s championship in the last three Olympics. The U.S. had forced overtime when Zach Parise scored with 24.4 seconds left in regulation.
Cross country Norway’s Petter Northug won the men’s 50-kilometer classical cross-country race for his second gold medal of the Olympics. The IOC said Lubomir Visnovsky of Slovakia tested positive for a stimulant contained in a cold medication and was reprimanded.
Record gold The hockey win capped Canada’s most successful Olympics ever – winter or summer – with 14 gold medals and 26 overall. It breaks the record for most gold medals at a Winter Games – the Soviet Union in 1976 and Norway in 2002 each won 13. Canada already had broken the host-nation mark of 10 golds shared by the U.S. in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Norway in Lillehammer in 1994.
Medals race The United States, while losing the gold medal race to Canada 14-9, won the most overall medals in Vancouver with 37. Germany had 30 overall medals and 10 golds, and Norway had 23 medals and nine golds.
Alpine Turin-badboy Bode Miller led the Americans’ resurgence in alpine skiing. The U.S. tallied eight alpine medals this Olympics, the most in U.S. history and twice as many as any other country the past two weeks. Miller collected three medals, including a gold medal in super-combined.
Complaint IOC president Jacques Rogge called the figure skating judging “absolutely impeccable,” regardless of what Russia’s Evgeni Plushenko thinks. The silver medalist griped that scoring was flawed because his routine was more difficult than the one by gold medalist Evan Lysacek of the United States. Rogge said international skating authorities have made it clear they value versatility.
Valiant effort Bronze medal-winning figure skater Joannie Rochette was Canada’s flagbearer for the closing ceremony. Rochette won her medal just days after her mother died of a heart attack, and she was chosen for the honor of carrying the flag because of her courageous performance.
Success Former Spokane Chiefs head coach Mike Babcock was the coach of the Canadian men’s hockey team. Babcock, who was on the Spokane bench from 1994-2000, has now won a World Junior Hockey Championship (1997), World Championship (2004) and an Olympic gold medal for Team Canada as head coach. In his first six seasons in the NHL, two with Anaheim and four with Detroit, he won 50 games four times and has coached in the Stanley Cup finals three times, winning it with his current club, the Red Wings, in 2008. While with Spokane, the Chiefs won two Western Conference championships (1996, 2000) and played in the 1998 Memorial Cup as the hosts.
Flame out As Canada closed the Vancouver Games with pageantry, the Olympic flag was ceremonially turned over to officials from the Russian resort of Sochi for the 2014 Winter Games.