VANCOUVER — For 20 minutes or so, you could dream about seeing Miracle On Ice II. You could dream about it, that is, if you were anywhere else in the world besides inside the Canada Hockey Place, where each of the 18,810 seats were filled, and filled with people wearing red sweaters with maple leafs on the front.
Elsewhere, the 0-0 score between Canada and Norway on this first day of the Olympic ice hockey tournament surely looked like a misprint. Inside, it looked like a lurching nightmare. Canada dominated play throughout the first period, outshooting Norway 14-4, but Pal Grotnes turned all 14 aside.
Do you believe in …
Well, it didn’t matter if you did once the second period began. Across those 20 minutes we saw what Canada hopes to see throughout this tournament: a deep, skilled, explosive team that can make scoreboards explode in a hurry.
Jarome Iginla’s one-timer 2 1⁄2 minutes in broke the deadlock, allowed the natives to breathe again, spurred a three-goal outburst in the period and ultimately delivered an 8-0 pounding that began Canada’s golden quest in style.
Of all the athletes at these Games, none resides under quite the microscope that this team does. Canada has one gold medal in Olympic hockey in the last 58 years and 14 Olympics after winning six of the first hockey golds contested. And from the start, every voice inside Canada Place was living and dying with every shift.
Thanks to 14 saves from hometown favorite Roberto Luongo — given the start in goal over Martin Brodeur — and a tireless offense, they might have plenty yet to cheer about.
“I think we needed that first period to get all the nerves out of us,” said Sidney Crosby, who had a pair of assists. “But after that, you have to like what you saw out there. It’s a great start for us.”
The opener of yesterday’s doubleheader was a bit quieter affair, the United States grinding out a 3-1 victory over Switzerland in a game the Americans admitted wasn’t nearly as clean or as impressive as they would like to see in the days to come.
“You could tell we still have some work getting used to each other,” said David Backes, who provided the game’s most significant highlight by going end-to-end to score the game’s second goal.
“We are definitely a chemistry test,” coach Ron Wilson said. “A work in progress.”