It ain't chopped liver

When I was growing up as a second-generation hockey fan in Chicago, there were maybe one or two American-born players in the NHL. It was pretty much taken for granted that players for the Blackhawks or the Rangers or the Bruins or the Red Wings were just as inevitably Canadians as players for the Maple Leafs or... well, the Canadiens.

Granted, I attended my first NHL game over half a century ago, and we in the stands had to occasionally duck marauding pterodactyls as well as flying pucks. Yes, it's been a while. But that still puts the performance of this year's U.S. Olympic hockey team into perspective.

The Canadian team was more talented than ours, though not by a ridiculous margin. They were playing in front of their fellow countrymen. It says a great deal for our guys that, under such conditions, they actually beat the Canadians in the first meeting between the two teams. But for our guys to play them again in the Gold Medal game, with the Canadian players not only motivated by that embarassment but facing the prospect of being exiled to Saskatchewan for life if they lost to the Americans again, and take them to overtime was an incredible achievement. It was a one-shot game, and it could just have easily gone the other way. Saying that takes nothing away from the Canadians; it simply points up what an utterly wonderful game closed out one of the outstanding tournaments in hockey history.

So congratulations to the Canadian team, to the Canadian people- and to the American team as well. You did us proud, guys.

Now Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, and Jonathan Toews can rejoin Patrick Kane on the side of the angels, and get on with the business of bringing a Stanley Cup home to Chicago.