Team Crosby

It wasn't possible to lift the unrelenting, glacial weight on Canada to rule the sport it invented, a sport that permeates and defines this country's soul. So rather than plead with his players to ignore the burden, coach Mike Babcock decided to stress that everything is relative. Look at figure skater Joannie Rochette, Babcock told them. Just days after the sudden death of her mother,Rochette managed to win a bronze medal in what was one of the most emotional, inspirational moment of any Olympics.
overtime.

Could the young and fairly unheralded Americans continue their perfect streak and upset the hosts for the second time in a week? Was Luongo finally tiring? Would an entire country's dream come crashing down?

"We couldn't think about any of that, nothing negative," Crosby said. "We knew if we kept playing our game we still had a pretty good chance."

Sid the Kid's narrative arc has been heading this way ever since Crosby was a precocious tyke growing up in Cole Harbour. A proficient skater at three with motor skills already ridiculously fine-tuned, Crosby gave his first interview at age seven. He's been Canada's most visible and dissected and beloved player since 2005, the year he turned pro. Alex Ovechkin might gripe that Crosby is too polished, too much of a corporate darling, but then it's Crosby who has the gold medal to wear with his championship ring, while Ovechkin and his Russian team shockingly fizzled on the Olympic stage.

As Miller collapsed into an exhausted puddle, Team USA's remarkable run over, Crosby tossed into the air his stick, then his gloves, then his mouthpiece. He was mobbed by his teammates, while tens of millions of tear and beer-stained Canadians hugged each other ... and hugged each other ... then hugged each other some more. And then they turned to people they actually knew and started hugging all over again.

Canada's 14th and last gold medal didn't just set a record for most won by a nation in a single Winter Olympiad. It shifted and transformed a nation's collective consciousness, reconfirming what Canadians knew about themselves but were too modest to say. It made the rest of the world envy Canada's coolness.

Toting a flag as big as a bed sheet around the rink, Crosby bathed in the crowd's love and gratitude, and much later he was still in his uniform, still doing interviews, still trying to come to grips with this enchanted moment. Someone asked him if he was planning to attend the Closing Ceremonies.

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