After some shaky moments at the start line, it will go down as one of Canada's greatest comebacks ever. Canada closed the Vancouver games yesterday with a world record 14 Winter Olympic gold medals.Number 14 came in mens hockey - the event we wanted most - thanks to a wild 3-2 overtime win over the United States. Sidney Crosby was the OT hero. He took a slick little pass frrom Jarome Iginla and quickly whacked an odd angle shot past American goalie Ryan Miller.
If you could draw energy from celebration, the reaction to Crosby's goal would have kept Canada warm for a decade. It was like every community in Canada winning the Stanley cup.
14 gold medals means we win the Olympics - period. No, wait. Exclamation point! End of story. Overall medal counts are not how they decide the winner of this thing. That's a fine exercise when you're struggling for champions, as we did in our distant past. We had 14 this year.
What's more, these games generated a tangible boost in Canadian patriotism. I've never felt it more than I do today. Too many of us tend to be apathetic in that regard, even taking a run at Americans for being such flag wavers and chest beaters. I've always said there's got to be a spot in the middle. We live in a great big beautiful country with friendly, peace loving people and tremendous athletes.
I know we have three branches of government that try to screw it up and charge insane membership fees but this is and always will be a club I'm proud to belong to.
