Canada and the United States renewed their hockey rivalry at the Olympics and gold was on the line once again. This time, however, the Americans topped Team Canada 3-2 in a shootout to capture gold.
The USA Women's Hockey team won its first gold medal since 1998 and ended Canada's incredible Olympic run of four-straight gold medals in women's hockey.
Hockey is unlike any other sport in the Olympics and we saw why after the game as Jocelyne Larocque of Canada immediately removed her silver medal once she received it.
"Just hard," she said. "We were going for gold."
Was the silver medal any consolation?
"I mean, yeah," she said. "Once we reflect. But now, not at the moment."
In every other Olympic event, an athlete that wins any medal is as happy as can be, but hockey is a different sport than any other at the Olympics. Canada lost to its biggest rival and that makes the sting of defeat hurt even worse.
Plus, most of these women representing Canada have already won gold and expect to do so each and every time, so coming up short of that goal is equivalent to losing in the Stanley Cup final.
There is no consolation prize at the moment for those Canadian players and even though they didn't win gold, they made our country proud and we hope that fact in itself makes the sting of defeat a little easier to overcome.
(H/T: Globe and Mail)
