Congratulations to Canadian Hockey Team
 

Scoring at will, the Canadians blitzed Team USA by a whopping 3-2 in sudden death overtime.

In my view, Canada won the 2010 Winter Olympics... they won the most gold medals and why would anybody want to count silver and bronze.

Congratulations!

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That was a great game! There wasn’t a dull moment. Congrats to goalie Roberto Luongo & co on the victory. That said, it was amazing that the American team scored as needed with just 25 seconds left.

All in all the quality of the competition has been most impressive throughout the Olympic Games -- and Canada has been a fine host.

Great to see Canada pull of the most gold medals.

Please stand by as we compute the number of golds and total medals on a per capita basis... Norway, did you say? :D
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Ha !! Shall we adjust the total medal count for snowfall per capita, too?:)

More important I think, Vancouver wins the all time drinking/partying gold medal, too. Let's be honest, some things are just more important than others and a good time ranks way up on the list.:D

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2010022...08599196854400

The hockey's not what it used to be. Teams usually behave at the Olympics, but a few decades ago Hockey Night in Canada was good for at least one good scuffle per game, hence the expression "I went to a fight, eh, and a hockey game broke out."

Maybe a combination hockey-boxing game in Sochi, with some kendo rolled in?

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Hands down! Whether we compute it per capita or not. :cool:
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As the Canadian in this crowd, I'm glad to read such positive comments. I thought we did rather well too. Crosbie's goal for gold in overtime was really great for folks from my town; Sydney is from the next town over about 5 miles from where I sit.

(Halifax is an amalgamated city, but everyone still thinks in terms of its original parts.)

The game, the tournament, and the Olympics ended as they should have, and the Canadian team not only deserved it but earned it. However, I also congratulate the American team, simply because, unlike the Canadians, they weren't even supposed to be there in the gold medal game. Yet they drove the Canadians to the edge. That's why it was such a good game.

Absolutely. The Canadian loss to the US in the prelims was probably responsible for their eventual win; it knocked all the complacency out of them. The US team was largely young up and comers and their goalie (Miller) was nothing short of incredible; darn near bombproof. He certainly earned MVP, though I'm sure he'd have preferred a different medal instead. Our guys were older and more experienced (with a few exceptions like Crosbie), but I thought the American team controlled the puck much better than we did.

I noticed in the closing ceremonies that none of either team were identified in the audience. Wonder what they were doing? Perhaps an ale?

My 12-year old grandsons, both of whom play very well in their league, will be talking about it for a month; dreams of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

There were spontaneous street hockey games in Vancouver (where I'm from and live) as well as dancing until the wee hours of the morning (police broke up the dancing at 5am!!).

What has impressed me most was how into it we all were and how much patriotism we showed. Canada is not known for its patriotism but by gosh we are proud of our country!

True; we tend to be quietly and modestly proud of our country.

I think the games were great! I don't know if it's odd (or out of place), but the Olympics infused a certain amount of pride in me for having Canada as our northern neighbor. You guys put on an excellent show, and you were polite enough to let us down here in the US think we could hang with you in Hockey ;). (We all know it's a sham, I mean really, who's going to out Hockey Canada? ...except us! We'll get your next time!)

The epitome of politeness was when one of our volunteers helped direct a protester to find the protest! I can't find any sources from that (saw it on Twitter), but it sounds like us!

As for the hockey, that was a great game and the US deserves our admiration for playing so well. They were an underdog and over-delivered!

Canada has a population of 33 million and hockey is our national sport. My back neighbor two over, for example, floods his entire back yard to create a rink for his boys. Just as you can see all the swimming pools when you fly into LA, you can see all the outdoor rinks when you fly into any of the colder cities in Canada. A lot of little girls play. The US has 10 times our population, but hockey as a pastime is really restricted to those states where the temperature stays consistently below freezing all winter.

That's a fair trade for one gold medal. :)

Concur. Florida should not be permitted to have a hockey team on general principle.

Or for that matter, the league should not have blocked the sale of the Coyotes to Jim Balsillie (RIM pres) on the grounds that he would have moved them to Hamilton, Ontario; a hockey-mad city. They're losing their shirts in Arizona.

Well sure, but then Bettman would have been wrong. And we can't have that.

I would also like to congrat' the Women's hockey team for their victory; however, the beer & cigars on ice were not appreciated by VANOC. As a Canadian who does not like hockey, I'm half 'rejected' because I don't play it unless necessary. How often did I skate this winter? … Once.

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I thought it was wine. In which case perhaps it was deemed unpatriotic – probably not being Canadian. (I presume it wasn’t Wild Blueberry or Cloudberry wine from Rodrigues in Newfoundland.)

:D Maybe they wouldn’t have been chastised if they had stuck with Beau’s or Keith’s or Sleeman, or Propeller Revolution from Halifax.
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I thought, in this particular instance, that the VANOC folks should get a life. Think about the average age of these young women; does this event sound out of character for their age group? What teed off the VANOC was that the party was photographed.

I agree, and what I don't understand is why hockey isn't more widespread in Utah, Colorado and Idaho (which all have fairly long periods of sub-zero [celsius] weather.) I wish we all played more. I'd like to see a hockey team in Salt Lake, I might start going to sporting events at that point...

The version of hockey that gets most kids going (Shinny) is played on lakes and ponds all around Nova Scotia. On the north shore it's played on bays, river mouths, and inlets that freeze over. On almost any pond or lake you'll see kids pushing snow shovels to make shinny rinks. On the cul-de-sac I live on, there's a shinny game in progress most fine afternoons. My guess vis-à-vis Utah, Colorado, and Idaho would be that there simply aren't enough ponds and lakes near large enough concentrations of kids to play.

When I was a kid, back in the last century, the local roller rink would throw out the nets and pass out the sticks for an hour after regular closing time so we kids could play roller hockey. An enjoyable but challenging game. Besides being blindsided by the opposition, one had to also navigate around the poles that supported the ceiling. And since none of us knew anything about hockey, it was pretty much a free for all (not fighting, just mass confusion).

No way this could happen in today's world.... owner wouldn't be able to afford the liability insurance.

@AEHurst: One of the great advantages of soccer over hockey is that it doesn't need a facility for a pickup game; it can be played anywhere. My grandsons play hockey all late Fall and Winter, soccer all summer and basketball (street hoops) in early Fall. We don't really have a Spring here -- we're a bit like Newfoundland where the 4 seasons are -- tongue in cheek -- Nearly Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Road Repair.

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An immigrant was once heard explaining the Norwegian seasons to a newly arrived compatriot: "They have two winters here, a white one and a green one. The green one is the worst, because they turn the heating off." :cool:
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I looked at Google Maps.... there's nothing between Nova Scotia and the North Pole but a barb wire fence, and it runs north and south.

Too True. :rolleyes: