Sports
Editor's note: The women's hockey final was played after this item was posted. Results here.
SOCHI, Russia — When the U.S. faces Canada on Thursday in the women’s Olympic gold-medal hockey game, and when the U.S. faces Canada on Friday in the men’s Olympic semifinal, the dogged contests will not only be rematches of the climactic finals in Vancouver four years ago — and continuations of longstanding rivalries — but both rosters also include plenty of frenemies who train together professionally when they’re not engaged in international Olympic competition.
This phenomenon hasn’t been limited to hockey, either.
In the women’s bobsled finale on Wednesday night, driver Kaillie Humphries of Canada edged her training buddy Elana Meyers of the U.S. in the fourth and final run to claim her second consecutive Olympic gold medal. At the 2013 World Championships, where Meyers finished behind Humphries, the two decided to share a strength coach.
“We knew that to be our best, we had to push each other day in and day out,” Meyers said, adding, “I’m the strongest and fittest I’ve ever been.”
And when U.S. ice dancers Meryl Davis and Charlie White stymied the bid by Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir to defend Olympic gold on Monday night, it was yet another title switcheroo between teams that share a coach (Marina Zueva) and a training site in Canton, Mich. The cross-border rivals have now finished 1–2 at every world and Olympic competition since 2010.
The skaters and sliders paint a friendly picture in public. But there is nothing abstract in hockey.
When North American women’s sticks meet for the 117th time, Canada will be after its fourth consecutive Olympic gold, while the U.S. is aiming for its first since 1998. After Canada beat the U.S. 3–2 in the preliminary round in Sochi, the U.S. team sat down for a 45-minute video session, and it wasn’t pretty.
“It was direct, I got called out and a lot of people did,” U.S. forward Monique Lamoureux said. “It was a good wake-up call. There was a lot we all did wrong.”
Now, Lamoureux said, “Our mood is good; we are ready to go. (Canada gets) competitive, they get heated and we are all very passionate.”
Canada’s plan, according to forward Natalie Spooner, is “to shut down their speed and play a more physical game against them.”
More physical?
The teams brawled twice during their pre-Olympic tour, and Canada’s coach Kevin Dineen said last week that there would be no MMA on his watch because the penalty carried a one-game suspension. But Thursday’s final is the last game in Sochi.
For the men’s semifinal on Friday, “this is the game we all wanted,” said U.S. coach Dan Bylsma.
No one has forgotten what happened in Vancouver.
With less than 20 seconds to go in the gold-medal game, Zach Parise tied it at 2 for the U.S., and in overtime, Sidney Crosby’s wrist shot past U.S. goalie Ryan Miller gave the home team a euphoric win.
“We are not going to try to outshoot a team like Canada,” Bylsma said, looking ahead to Friday’s game. “We are going in with a blue-collar mentality, to outwork them. We want to win a low-scoring game, a 2-to-1 game. They’re deeper and they have more skill, but we are going to be very hard to play against.”
The defensive strategy, according to U.S. forward David Backes, “will be huge. We can’t give them that inch. We have to stand our ground. We’re going to lay everything we have into that game.”
“Regardless, Canada is always the favorite going into the tournament,” Parise said. Head-to-head in international play, Canada has won 49 games, lost seven, and tied three times against the U.S. men.
In the end, if both Canadian hockey teams prevail before the weekend and the men go on to win gold on Sunday against Sweden or Finland, it would be the third Olympic gold-medal hockey sweep for Canada (replicating 2002 and 2010).
If both U.S. teams prevail, however, it would be the first Olympic hockey gold medals of the century for the U.S., and Amanda and Phil Kessel would be the rare siblings to earn gold medals in the same event at the same Olympic Games, causing great family celebration — even if their dad, Phil, was a quarterback in the Canadian Football League.
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