U.S. and Canada in Fight for Olympic Hockey Gold

Image by LeeLeFever via Flickr

By CHARLES McGRATH and JEFF Z. KLEIN
Published: February 27, 2010

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Looking ahead to Sunday’s gold medal game, the Canadian coach, Mike Babcock, said of the Americans: “We know them and they know us. There won’t be a lot of surprises.”

Kim Stallknecht for The New York Times
Sunday’s gold metal game between Canada and the U. S. will likely be fought in the corners and along the boards. Above, action from the teams’ early round match.

Go to the Rings Blog » The weight of a nation is on Babcock’s shoulders as he tries to figure out how to beat the Americans, who stunned the hockey world last Sunday by stealing a 5-3 victory from the Canadians. But, he said, he welcomes the responsibility.

“Pressure is a real positive — I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I didn’t love it,” Babcock said. “You’re an adrenaline junkie if you’re in sports. I watch the skiers and the speedskaters, and that’s what it’s all about. If you’ve been in the Olympic Village all week like I have, you’ve seen people totally elated, and you’ve seen people totally crushed.

“The people in Vancouver, walking around the city, are so jacked up to be Canadian right now, to be here at this event, to be enjoying it,” he added. “I think it’s all fantastic.”

Team USA General Manager Brian Burke said: “I don’t feel there is any pressure on our team. The pressure started for Team Canada the day they awarded the games to Vancouver.”

There will probably not be a lot of dazzling Olympic-style hockey, either. Don’t look for fancy stickwork — for dangles, spin-o-ramas, between-the-legs drags. The Europeans are mostly gone, and with them their artistry. Vanoc, the Vancouver group that organized these Winter Games, has said all along that the decision to play the games on an N.H.L.-size rink instead of the larger international surface was practical and financial, not strategic. But the smaller ice has clearly not hurt the Canadians or the Americans.

The game will probably be old-fashioned trench warfare, fought in the corners, along the boards, in the no-man’s land in front of the net.

The Canadians built a 3-0 lead against Slovakia on Friday night by playing tough, blue-collar hockey, but had to hang on once they began skating around wildly hurling themselves at the Slovakian attackers.

“I was trying to put the foot on the gas and saying, ‘Let’s go after ’em, let’s go after ’em,’ but that just wasn’t happening,” Babcock said. “When the fans started chanting, ‘We want the U.S.’ with 14 minutes left, I was scared to death. I was thinking, ‘They have no idea what’s really going on here.’ ”

All three of Canada’s goals came from grunt work in front of the net — a pair of tip-ins, and a rebound swatted in by Ryan Getzlaf after he had been knocked to his knees. The second of these goals was scored by Brenden Morrow, who Babcock freely admits was chosen not for his skill but for his grit.

This is the classic Canadian style — get the puck in deep, then crash the net — and it may account in part for why the immensely gifted Sidney Crosby, though skating hard and well, has been such a puzzling nonpresence. He clearly misses the equally talented Evgeni Malkin, his linemate with the Pittsburgh Penguins. But Crosby’s flair and creativity don’t always fit very neatly with the grind-it-out habits of some of the others, and Babcock has been juggling lines trying to find some combination that works with Crosby.

To judge from what players on the Canadian and American teams were saying after their very different semifinal victories, the first few minutes may be a deciding factor. The Canadians walked over Russia in the quarterfinals because they had the Russians on their heels from the opening face-off. Canada came out hard and bottled them up in their own end, forcing turnovers and making players like Malkin, Alex Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk play defense — something the great Russian artists are not used to, and except for Ovechkin, not particularly fond of either.

The United States did the same thing against Finland, and the game was over before the Finns had a chance to take a timeout and collect their bearings. Coach Ron Wilson summarized the Americans’ strategy this way: “Go on the attack and take advantage, try and force them into mistakes.”

Neither the American nor the Canadian power play has been especially formidable, but all the same, both teams would be smart to stay out of the penalty box. The teams are so closely matched that an extra man or two could tip the balance.

And, obviously, goaltending is the most crucial factor. The United States has advanced this far largely because of Ryan Miller’s spectacular efforts. After Martin Brodeur’s wobbly performance in the first meeting against the Americans, Roberto Luongo has righted the ship for the Canadians. He said that the game against the Slovaks, which required him to make a number of acrobatic saves in the closing seconds, was some of the most fun he had ever had.

Babcock said that the first time against the Americans, the Canadians did not get enough rebounds and deflections, adding: “We were too easy on Miller. This time, we won’t be.”

One of Miller’s strengths is the way he comes out of the net and squares himself to the shot, and the big Canadian defenseman Chris Pronger suggested that the way to counteract that was to get in his face.

“We need to get traffic in front, force him back in the crease,” he said.

The Canadians have much more at stake in this game. The entire country is expecting the gold and will be devastated by any other result.

Babcock is drawing on a national talent pool so big that almost half his players are the captains of their respective N.H.L. clubs, and yet he has not hesitated to ask them to accept subsidiary roles. He did not even think twice about benching Brodeur, the best goalie of his generation and a future Hall of Famer.

This has already been a hugely successful and rewarding learning experience for the United States, the youngest squad here, with only three players who have prior Olympic exposure. On average, each makes $3 million a year less than his Team Canada counterpart and there are many fewer stars.

“We’re not asking 30-goal scorers to do the grunt work,” Burke said. “We have grunts doing the gruntwork.”

But they’re not expecting to settle for silver.

“We’ve been playing for the gold medal all along,” the captain, Jamie Langenbrunner, said.