Rulers of the rink

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This article was published 26/02/2010 (6001 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER — Jennifer Botterill refused to let herself look too closely at an Olympic gold medal.

"We’ve seen a couple shots of them on TV," the Team Canada forward allowed. "A couple times when you go through security a couple of athletes who have won already are going in and out. So you sort of saw them near, but I didn’t want to go too close."

It’s a hockey thing. Don’t touch the Stanley Cup until it’s been won.

But then on Thursday someone put one of those medals around Botterill’s neck. It was gold.

Once again, as they did in Salt Lake in 2002, the Canadians ousted their fierce rivals from the USA 2-0, riding a shutout from a goaltender who once played with NHL star Dion Phaneuf and a pair of goals from a shy French-Canadian sniper all of 18 years old.

It was Canada’s eighth gold of the Winter Games, a new mark for the nation.

For the 30-year-old Botterill, it was her third Olympic gold to go with a silver won in 1998 in Nagano — the inaugural women’s hockey tournament in the Winter Games.

The Canucks haven’t lost since, and on Thursday night it was a scene so reeking of Canadiana they might as well have coated the joint in maple syrup.

Canada Hockey Place was jammed to the rafters again, just as it has been for every home game, men or women, in a sea of red not seen since the Soviets turned pro. The Great One was there, sitting next to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. They stood and cheered for Canadian gold medallist Maelle Ricker, the snowboarder from Squamish, B.C.

And they went nuts when Michael J. Fox stood and pointed at his T-shirt that read "Canada".

Fittingly, it was back to the future for Botterill, too, who was still attempting to shake the focus on winning on home soil so ingrained in her DNA that she — for a brief moment — broke from her usual composure to succumb to a bout of leaky tear ducts.

"I’ll probably go back to the locker-room and take a deep breath," Botterill said, when asked when the impact of the accomplishment might take hold. "It’s hard because you’ve got all the energy in the game, right, and you want to stay focussed. We’re standing there and once in a while we turn to each other and say, ‘We just won the Olympics in Canada!’ I’m sure it will take some time to sink in."

The Winnipegger wasn’t the only Canadian lost for words.

Marie-Philip Poulin, the teenager from Beauceville, Que. who scored both Canadian goals, was thrust in front of a microphone as a horde of international reporters scrambled towards her. "Do I start talking now?" a confused Poulin asked no one in particular.

But just like on ice, Poulin caught on quickly. "It’s just awesome to have this medal around my neck," she said. "There’s no words to describe it."

Then there was goaltender Shannon Szabados, a 23-year-old netminder of Hungarian descent from Edmonton, who grew up playing with boys before winning an MVP crown in the Alberta Junior A league. At one time, Szabados was a teammate of a defenceman called Dion Phaneuf, now patrolling the blue-line of the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs. "I’ll take credit for that," Szabados quipped.

Another save.

Prior to the game, Steve Yzerman, the boss of Team Canada’s men’s team, which will face Slovakia today in an Olympic semifinal, came into the Canadian dressing room and told the women: "Trust yourselves."

They did. In the end, a few of Botterill’s teammates grabbed a Canadian flag with the Maple Leaf the colour of gold. They stood and sang the anthem when the flag was raised.

"To be able to look in the stands and seeing everybody cheering for you, knowing that you’ve just won an Olympic medal is a great feeling," offered Canada’s leading scorer Meghan Agosta, just 22. "And knowing that Canada’s behind you — not only in this building, but on TV — 100 per cent."

Make no mistake. It was a happy, syrupy ending, but the expectations for the girls to win gold was palpable, too, just as with the boys.

"Lots of pressure," Szabados agreed. "But how much did we feel? They were cheering for us, not against us. What’s the pressure in that?"

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca