The day the music died in Russia

The Sochi Olympics will go on for the rest of the world, but for Russia, the music died Wednesday.

Hockey was the emotional centrepiece of these Games, and as in Canada four years ago, the whole mood of the country rose and fell with the fortunes of the hockey team.

They had hopes, coming in — they even had Russia’s most powerful fan, President Vladimir Putin, publicly plumping for them — but in the end, the pressure did them in.

The pressure, and the fatigue ... and the Finns.

Unlike Canada’s happy ending, it was a shocked and silent departure from the Olympic tournament for the Russians, whose memorable shootout loss to the U.S. in the preliminary round meant they had to play an extra qualifying game Tuesday against Norway.

Twenty hours later, they were back on the ice and ...

“We knew that they played four games in five nights, and we had to make sure they had to grind every opportunity for what they get,” said Teemu Selanne. “I think they were out of gas a little bit.”

But it was more than that. It was the number of no-shows in their lineup. They put Alex Ovechkin’s picture on Coke machines here; in North America it would have been milk cartons.

“I don’t know why some of our top players didn’t score — especially Ovechkin,” said coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, getting right to it in his post-game grilling by an unhappy Russian media.

Missing? The Great 8 scored 77 seconds into the tournament and was shut out for the last 303:43.

And he had plenty of company among the non-producers, including Evgeni Malkin.

“We had a good start, scored a power play goal, felt pretty good. But we made two mistakes that cost us the game,” said Ovechkin. “It sucks, what can I say.”

Ilya Kovalchuk’s rocket from the slot, on a sweet feed from Russia’s best player throughout, Pavel Datsyuk, gave them the lead Wednesday at the Bolshoy Ice Dome, and the sellout crowd was ready to party, but that was the last of the joy they or their team would get on this day.

Tuukka Rask was a rock in goal, and the Finns, missing so many top forwards it seemed absurd to think they could stop the mighty Russian lineup, not only stopped them cold but scored three of their own — all on Semyon Varlamov, the coach’s curious choice to start in the net.

He was yanked after the third Finnish goal, 6:42 into the second period, in favour of Sergei Bobrovsky.

For all the support the Russians had in the building, the two biggest fans were Selanne’s: two mis-hit shots that produced the game-winning goal and an assist on Mikael Granlund’s clincher.

To say that goaltending and defence let the Russians down — the L.A. Kings’ Slava Voynov was outraced by Granlund on the Selanne goal, and Montreal’s Alexei Emelin was off for hooking when Granlund got the third Finnish goal — would be doing a grave disservice to the Finns, who played magnificent defence and have now beaten Russia the last three times they’ve met in the Olympics.

“They showed us how to play hockey,” said Edmonton Oilers defenceman Anton Belov.

“It was a team playing against us.”