There was an air of electricity in Montreal the last couple of days - an air of electricity that can only be created by a big hockey game, even on August 31st.
After all, Team Canada was opening up the World Cup of Hockey 2004 against their chief rivals from the United States. And while there was nothing really on the line for this game other than bragging rights and possibly home-ice advantage in the playoff round, Team Canada was under great public pressure to come up with the victory against Team USA. If Team USA repeated their 1996 World Cup victory in Montreal, outraged fans would have called for a parliamentary reviews.
Even parliament was impressed on this night.
"This is a great game!" exclaimed Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said from the stands. He had pretty good seats, unlike American defenseman Paul Martin who had to watch from the press box in the rafters.
Canada may have skated away with the 2-1 victory and bragging rights, but Team USA recovered from a bad first period to skate away with their own victory of
sorts.
Canada wore retro throwback jerseys from the 1920 Olympic gold medal winning Winnipeg Falcons. The public impression of the mustard yellow jerseys may be mixed, but the jerseys looked great for the opening 25 minutes of the game. Canada dominated, particularly on the power play, and if it wasn't for a strong performance by USA goaltender Robert Esche, Canada could have been up 4 or 5 to nothing.
The USA's experience paid off as they regained their composure and turned around the momentum by the end of the second period.
With Canada down to 5 defensemen for the final 40
minutes because of an injury to Ed Jovanovski,
Canada had to slow down their attack in order to
pace their very active defense. USA was able to
capitalize on this turning point, and began
aggressively crashing the Canadian goal.
The teams seemed to tire themselves out a bit as the two teams slowed down a bit for an evenly played third period. Team USA did an admirable job of salvaging what could have been a disastrous start.
The game was full of intensity and emotion. USA's tactic of crashing the net and bothering Canadian goaltender Martin Brodeur led to several after-the-whistle melees, although only one fight. Scott Niedermayer and Jeff Halpern scrapped in the second period. Mario Lemieux, of all people, received a roughing penalty on the same play.
The physical nature of the game was costly to both sides. Canada finished the game with only 5 defensemen as Ed Jovanovski left in the first period with an undisclosed injury. Mike Modano and Eric Weinrich,
who was battling the flu, didn't finish the game for the USA.
Jovanovski is looking questionable for the rest of
the tournament.
Martin St. Louis and Joe Sakic scored for Canada. Bill Guerin replied for Team USA.
Sakic's goal shouldn't have counted, as the puck hit
the mesh seconds before, but the play was never
whistled down. There was no real fuss about the
missed call, however.
High marks go out to Eric Brewer, Simon Gagne, Joe Thornton, Ryan Smyth and Shane Doan of Canada, and Esche, Keith Tkachuk, John Michael Liles of Team USA for very impressive games.
Since all teams go
onto the playoff round, wins and losses aren't
terribly important at this stage. It is far more
important that a team plays well at this stage, and
both teams can be proud of their performances.
Canada came out on
fire and dominated, but then let up on the Americans
and let them back in the game. USA has to be worried
about their dreadful start, but showed good
character to come back and make a game of it.
Canada plays its
second game of the round robin portion of the
eight-team tournament Wednesday night against
Slovakia (CBC, 7. p.m. EDT), also at the Bell
Centre. The Americans play Russia on Thursday night
in St. Paul, Minn.
|
Legends
of Team Canada Book Oct 2004
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