Gold: Five Years Later

Sidney Crosby has been named captain of Team Canada. (Paul Chiasson/CP)

Sidney Crosby scored the Golden Goal to give Canada gold in Olympic Men’s Hockey exactly five years ago today.

Time flies, eh? That was one of the happiest days of my life and definitely one of the craziest. I only found out I had a ticket to the game about an hour before puck drop. I basically wind-sprinted to the arena as soon as the ticket was in my hand.

This is the reaction video I made following the game. My voice is completely shot from screaming.

On today, the fifth anniversary of the Golden Goal, I decided to watch the game for the first time. Well, I mean, the second time. Since seeing the game live and in the flesh *pauses to allow jealousy to seep into your pores*, I have never seen it again. That means that until today, I had never watched the broadcast of the 2010 Men’s Gold Medal Final. Let me take you through some of the new things I noticed…

What an amazing game. It’s five years later, I clearly know what happened, and yet I’m sitting there nervous waiting for the opening faceoff. All the emotions of that day came rushing back to me. Every time the crowd chanted “MILLLL-ERRR” I got nervous and didn’t say it along with them. I was at the preliminary game between Canada and the US and I actually started a Miller chant in my section. The States scored seconds later and everybody yelled at me and told me to shut up and sit down. Lesson learned.

Luongo was an absolute star in this game. You could easily argue that Ryan Miller was the best goalie of the tournament but Luongo was the better goalie on this day. Dustin Brown had a golden opportunity to open the scoring and Patrick Kane had an even better one off the rebound but the puck stayed under Luongo in the blue paint. I didn’t realize it at the time from way up in the top deck but it turns out that puck was basically resting on the line. Way too close.

Let’s skip to overtime.

Everybody knows the “IGGY!” heard ’round the world from the Golden Goal. Just minutes before that goal though, Iginla had a beautiful chance to win it, Miller stopped him, and Iginla recovered the puck. From behind the net, you can hear Crosby shout “Iggy” clear as day in almost the exact same way he yelled it for the winner.

It’s kind of astounding how many times the Golden Goal was almost scored. There was the Iginla chance I just mentioned, for example. Patrick Marleau and Shea Weber broke in on a two-on-one, Marleau opted to shoot, and Miller stopped him. If Marleau passed that, and it looked like he had enough room to pull it off, Shea Weber could have scored the Golden Goal. About a minute later, Dany Heatley threw a wrister high glove on Miller only to get robbed. Can you imagine if any of those guys were the one to clinch it? Iginla set up the winner so it’s a bit different for him but what about Marleau? Weber? Heatley? This isn’t just any goal. This is the Golden Goal on home soil. It’s life-changing. You have that to hang your hat on for the rest of your life. You’re a national hero! Let’s not even mention the endorsement deals. Heatley wouldn’t just be #50in07, he would be #GoldIn2010.

Then there’s Joe Pavelski…

History is a funny thing. We remember what happed but often forget what almost was. What Scott Niedermayer did was almost one of the single biggest blunders in hockey history. Niedermayer throws an absolute grenade of a pass into the slot, Joe Pavelski intercepts it, spins, fires, and gets stopped by a shocked Roberto Luongo. The scary thing was how scared Luongo looked after the save. He was caught completely off guard and made a gold medal-saving stop. Speaking of life-changing events, imagine if Pavelski scored that. Pavelski would be an American hockey hero. No matter how much of a great, Hall-of Fame career Niedermayer had, no matter how many Cups he won, the Norris Trophy or Conn Smythe he won, he would always have that blunder following him around. Then funny enough, as fate would have it, he began the rush that lead to the Golden Goal.

And what a goal that was. It set off one of the biggest celebrations in this country’s history from coast to coast. If you needed any reminder of that, just watch this:

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