Olympic roundup: What Canada did on Day 15
Last Updated: Saturday, February 27, 2010 | 2:16 AM ET
By Tim Wharnsby, Chris Iorfida and Justin Piercy CBC Sports
Team Canada forward Sidney Crosby tests netminder Jaroslav Halak in a 3-2 semifinal victory over Slovakia on Friday night. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)Four medals and a crucial hockey win — that sums up Canada's stellar performance on Day 15 at the Vancouver Olympics.
The men's hockey team booked its spot in the gold-medal final with a 3-2 victory over Slovakia on Friday, while Canadian short-track speedskaters won three medals and Cheryl Bernard took silver in women's curling.
Patrick Marleau, Brenden Morrow and Ryan Getzlaf scored as Team Canada advanced to Sunday's final game against the United States.
The undefeated U.S. squad, led by the outstanding efforts of goalie Ryan Miller, has been the only team to beat Canada in Vancouver. But since that 5-3 loss last Sunday, Canada has reeled off wins over Germany, Russia and now Slovakia by a combined score of 18-7.
With less than 15 minutes remaining Friday, the full house at Canada Hockey Place chanted, "We want U.S.A., we want U.S.A." Later the crowd yelled in unison, "We want gold, we want gold."
Canadian coach Mike Babcock vowed that his players will make it much more difficult on Miller this Sunday, getting more traffic in front of the U.S. netminder and more deflections.
"We were too easy on Miller last time," Babcock said. "We won't be next time."
"We're going to have to tighten up defensively," Getzlaf added. "They skated around us pretty hard [last Sunday]."
Slovakian defenceman Lubomir Visnovsky spoiled Canadian goalie Roberto Luongo's shutout bid when his backhand from a bad angle bounded off the side of Luongo's left pad and into the net.
Michal Handzus pulled Slovakia to within a goal when he popped in a rebound with 4:53 remaining in the third period, making for a nerve-racking finish.
Hossa whiffs
With just under three minutes on the clock, Luongo was in position to stop Handzus from in close and he had to be sharp during a goal-mouth scramble the next shift. Marian Hossa whiffed on a chance in the slot and Pavol Demitra missed a glorious chance in the final seconds.
"I thought for sure it was going to go in," Demitra said. "I hit it hard and I think I hit his glove or something. I couldn't believe it. He's a great goalie."
Luongo confirmed that Demitra's shot did hit his glove, saying, "I got a piece of it."
Under heavy criticism for underperforming at the Vancouver Games, the Canadian men's short-track team responded on the final night of competition at the Pacific Coliseum with gold in the 5,000-metre relay and gold and bronze in the 500.
Charles Hamelin won the men's 500 and François-Louis Tremblay was third. The two then came back about an hour later with François Hamelin and Olivier Jean of Lachenaie, Que., to win the relay.
The results give Canada 10 gold medals in Vancouver — the first country to reach that total — and push its overall count to 21 medals.
The 500-metre gold-medal final was up for grabs when a crash occurred in the final turn, with Sung Si-Bak of South Korea and Montreal's Tremblay sent crashing.
Hamelin hung on to his balance and crossed in first ahead of Apolo Ohno of the United States. Ohno was disqualified after the judges conferred, charged with knocking Tremblay away. Sung captured silver.
In the relay, Canada took the lead from China just over 3½ minutes into the race and Hamelin extended the lead with about 10 laps to go.
Canada crossed in a time of six minutes 44.224 seconds. South Korea took silver, with Ohno winning his eighth Winter Olympic medal as the U.S. took bronze.
Cheryl Bernard and her Calgary-based rink of Carolyn Darbyshire, Cori Bartel and Susan O'Connor won the silver medal in women's curling.
The Canadians couldn't knock off the defending champion Swedish rink of Anette Norberg, Eva Lund, Cathrine Lindahl and Anna Le Moine, taking silver in a 7-6 extra-end loss that hinged on Bernard's last rock in the final two ends.
After steals in the sixth and seventh ends put the Canadians on top 6-4 heading into the 10th end, Bernard couldn't extinguish the Swedish hopes of a repeat gold as her last rock failed to knock Norberg's second-last stone out of the house.
The Swedes took that break and scored a pair — giving them new life and another end, although surrendering the hammer to Canada.
As Norberg lined up her last shot in the 11th, the Canadian shot stone was covered by a Swedish rock in the four-foot. The Swedish skip bumped her own stone to eliminate the Canadian presence in the house and rolled her shooter behind a guard.
Bernard's attempt at the double came up short, allowing the steal and losing the gold medal.
"I had two chances to win that game and my team gave them to me in 10 and 11, couldn't ask for any more," Bernard said. "That's kind of it. "Eventually this silver's going to feel really great. Just right now, the gold was very close."
Also on Friday, the Canadian men's speedskating pursuit team guaranteed themselves a medal by defeating Norway in the semifinals at the Richmond Oval.
The Canadian men's team of Denny Morrison of Fort St. John, B.C., Lucas Makowsky of Regina and Mathieu Giroux of Montreal posted an Olympic record time of three minutes 42.22 seconds.
They shaved time off the record they had just set earlier in the day by knocking off Italy in their quarter-final.
"I think it was a little unexpected, but when three guys skate well together, good things like this happen," said Makowsky. "I don't think we expected that we would skate this fast out there, especially to do it twice like that an hour and a half apart.
"But we kept it together and now we're really happy."
The gold-medal final is at 12:50 p.m. PT (3:50 p.m. ET) on Saturday.
Other Canadian results from Friday:
Alpine skiing, women's slalom: Brigitte Acton of Sault Ste Marie, Ont., finished 17th with a combined time of 1:45.93. Anna Goodman of Pointe-Claire/Mont-Tremblant, Que., was 19th (1:46.04), Erin Mielzynski of Guelph, Ont., was 20th (1:46.09) and Marie-Michele Gagnon of Lac-Etchemin, Que., was 31st (1:49.51).
Bobsleigh, men's four-man: Canada 1 (Lascelles Brown of Calgary, Lyndon Rush of Humboldt, Sask., Chris Le Bihan of Kelowna, B.C., and David Bissett of Edmonton) is second after two runs with a combined time of 1:42.15. Canada 2 (Justin Kripps of Summerland, B.C., Jesse Lumsden of Hamilton, Neville Wright of Edmonton and Pierre Lueders of Edmonton) is sixth (1:42.56). The final two runs are scheduled for Saturday.
Snowboard, women's parallel giant slalom: Alexa Loo of Richmond, B.C., finished ninth in qualification but was eliminated in the first heat of the final round after finishing 12th. Caroline Calve of Aylmer, Ont., and Kimiko Zakreski of Calgary did not advance after placing 20th and 29th, respectively, in qualification.
Biathlon, men's 4x7.5K relay: Canada (Robin Clegg of Ottawa and Marc-André Bedard of Valcartier, Que.) finished 10th with a time of 1:24:50.7.
Long-track speedskating, women's team pursuit: Canada (Kristina Groves of Ottawa, Christine Nesbitt of London, Ont., and Brittany Schussler of Winnipeg) was defeated by the U.S. in the quarter-finals after posting a time of 3:02.24.
Short-track speedskating, women's 1,000 metres: Kalyna Roberge of Saint-Étienne-de-Lauzon, Que., finished sixth with a time of 1:32.122. Jessica Gregg of Edmonton was seventh (1:32.333). Tania Vicent of Laval, Que., was disqualified in the quarter-finals.
