The Golden Goal

I was actually going to start this entry a couple of hours ago, but it's amazing how difficult it is to type with a lump in your throat.

The reason for my emotional response to a hockey game didn't have all that much to do with Sidney Crosby's over-time goal. I'm sure those kind of things happen every night or two in the NHL.

And to be honest, it wasn't like I was there in Vancouver, the way I was when the Lambeth Lancers won their play-off series against the Mount Brydges Bulldogs with a TRIPLE-OVERTIME goal. The photo I took of the Lancers congregating in the corner of the Lambeth Arena, basically on the other side of the Plexiglas from me, as I stood next to team owners Roop Chanderdat and Scott Dart, remains one of the best photos I took while working for Your Village News. But even more importantly, it made me realize just how much of an emotional hold this game has on this country.

No, it was just me, standing (because I couldn't sit down) in front of the TV in my room, fearing I'd have to watch as the Americans, who had battled back from a 2-0 deficit, would score the overtime goal. And let's face it, no matter what else we accomplished over these last two weeks, a loss in the gold medal hockey game would have ended the games on a sour note for Canada.

But instead, even as the commentators were in mid-discussion came Crosby's shot that will forever be known as "the Golden Goal", and we had our "Henderson Scores for Canada!" moment for new generations to discuss "where were you when...?"

And yet, I wasn't alone, and perhaps that was the overwhelming idea about it. I knew that an entire nation was watching this game, cheering Crosby and the rest of Team Canada like I was. Certainly, the Olympic coverage showed legions of Canadian fans in Vancouver, Toronto (wait, was that Jack Layton at Gretzky's in Toronto?), Nova Scotia and, most poignantly for me, in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

And it's in the words of one Canadian serviceman, 33-year-old Corporal Mike Zebiere, that said it best in a post on the Globe and Mail website: "Why does it always have to come like this? Every time? We can't ever get a good, easy win? But it couldn't have ended any better."

(By the way, click on that link to read a report on the Canadians - and an American or two - watching the game in Afghanistan. No seriously, I'll still be here when you get back.)

And yeah, as I myself posted on Facebook, I have never heard an entire nation groan as I did when the U.S. scored, with 24 seconds left in the final period of regulation play. But my answer to Cpl. Zebiere is that Team Canada wanted to make it extra exciting for their fans, their fellow Canadians. Don't get me wrong if it had been 8-1 or whatever the score was against the Russians, going into 30 seconds left in the game, Canadians would still have cheered. But almost having the gold snatched out of our hands, only for the Canadians to snatch it right back made the victory all the sweeter.

Speaking of Facebook, one only had to check out the status updates to know that Canadians (one particular @ssh@t notwithstanding) were cheering and showing their national pride even on the Internet, sharing that pride with their friends.

Even WWE Superstar Chris Jericho (son of former NHLer Ted Irvine) weighed in on the game, demanding the WWE have a TV set up in the dressing room of a house show and later Tweeting "Beautiful goal and a storybook ending to the best game I've ever seen! Best part is I got to see it."

And as Team Canada celebrated, I thought of Terry and Owen and Trudeau and the men and women we've lost in Afghanistan, and while a Olympic hockey victory should certainly not stack up against running across Canada for cancer or serving your country, it's a times like this that we remember what has made our nation great.

And while we cheer our men's hockey team for their victory, Canada as a whole has a lot to celebrate today. With 14, Canada's Olympic team has set a new record for most gold medals in a Winter Olympics. Not too shabby for a team looking to nab its first gold on home soil as the 2010 games began.

And so maybe we all still have to get up for work tomorrow, the same way we would have if the U.S. had won. Bills still have to be paid. The same problems we had yesterday will still have to be dealt with.

But today, we could take a moment and be proud of our country.

Canada...the true North, strong and free.