Bruce Arthur on Russian hockey’s golden moment,
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— There is a reason they call them miracles. With four minutes left in the men’s Olympic hockey final, Germany had the lead. Yes, Germany. They were AHL guys, European league guys, a hockey minnow in an ordinary year. They were not in Sochi, back when NHL players were involved; this time they barely qualified. They were playing a stacked Russian team, the team the tournament was all but rigged for, and they had four minutes to gold. Then three. Then two. Holy hell, Germany.
And then, we found out how hard a miracle can be. This tournament, in some ways, was like going back in time. Russia was the favourite, whatever they were called. They had to be disappointed to get Germany in the final: How do you tell the legend of an Olympic gold when all you had to do was beat Germany? As Russian fan Alexander Ruban of Novosibirsk put it before the game: “We want to play with Canada, only Canada, in final. Only Canada. It’s classic game. We have only one team, how say, rival. One rival in the world. Who is this Germany? I don’t know one player.”
Still, when you have been robbed of your flag and colours because you ran a state-sponsored doping scheme, you have you take what you can get.
And then came the game, and holy hell. Russia couldn’t get away. They went up twice, and twice Germany scored. And with 4:16 left, German forward Jonas Muller was left alone in the slot on a rush, and he beat Russian goaltender Vasili Koshechkin. Good god. It was right there.
“I thought we had them,” said forward Marcel Goc. “We got the gold. But they didn’t stop, they kept coming.”
With 2:11left Russia’s Sergei Kalinin was called for tripping, and German coach Marco Sturm said to himself, Oh no. He worried his players would relax. But all they had to do was play keepaway. Just hold the puck, and kill the clock. Gold was there, over the next hill.
“We just said on the power play, we want to spread it out and run the time down,” said forward David Wolf.
But then Yannic Seidenberg, the brother of Islander Dennis Seidenberg, loosed a shot. Why? Why wasn’t Christian Ehrhoff, their best defenceman, out there? Why in God’s name did Seidenberg shoot?
The shot hit shinpads. Russia chased it. They had skill guys on the ice, killers. They pulled their goalie. The puck was in a crowd in front of the German net and nobody could clear it, and a shot hit a German and bounced to Nikita Gusev, who chopped it over the shoulder of Danny aus den Birken: 3-3, with 55.5 seconds left.
And in overtime, at four-on-four, it was no contest. Germany’s Patrick Reimer took a high-sticking penalty; the Russian power play was precise, lethal math. Gusev to 20-year-old Ki- rill Kaprizov, top shelf, and the Olympic Athletes from Russia celebrated like they never had in their hockey lives. Vladimir Putin called coach Oleg Znarok on the bench to congratulate him. All the Russian fans in the crowd howled, waving their flags. The team’s goal song, Mary Hopkins’s version of “Those Were The Days”, played out. “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance forever and a day.” Russia, in hockey, probably prefers its past.
But this was a new glory, however hollow it might have been. The Russian fans in the stands sang the anthem as the Olympic flag was raised instead of Russia’s, and the players did as well.
“We knew that we would do it if we win,” said Pavel Datsyuk, 40, who said it was better than winning a Stanley Cup. “So it’s great. I have achieved my dream. Now, I have no dream.”
Some Germans took pictures with Ilya Kovalchuk, and Datsyuk. They got over it, mostly. But they were so close.
“You can’t even look back and think what could have been,” said Reimer. “We played a great game tonight and we can be so proud of what we achieved. We got a silver medal? Who would have thought before the tournament that we could actually do that?”
“If we won the game we could have had a gold medal, and you guys should do a second movie of Miracle On Ice, right?” said Wolf.
“It was still a small miracle, right?” said Reimer.
It was; it just could have been bigger. Russia has still never won Olympic men’s hockey gold. The Soviet Union has; the Unified Team, in1992, has. And the Olympic Athletes from Russia have, Potemkin tournament and all. Said one Russian journalist, “If hockey team wins Olympic gold, then Olympic Games are OK. If we did not win a medal in hockey, it would have been a tragedy.”
“I think that this gold medal at these Olympic Games is the answer to all of your questions, ladies and gentlemen of the press,” said Znarok. “This match, let me tell you, was the most important match of my life.” Of no flag in the closing, he said, “Russia is in our hearts.”
Russia didn’t get its flag. It didn’t get its colours. But it got its own unexpected miracle on ice, and for Russia that will be enough.