So Team USA took the “Gold or nothing” approach to Sochi a bit too literally in the end, coming up with absolutely nothing in a 5-0 defeat to Finland in Saturday’s bronze medal game, which marks this Olympic foray as a failure for the Yanks.
It was ultimately a failure of heart from our professionals, apparently too hung over with despair in the wake of their 1-0 semifinal defeat on Friday to Canada to even compete against Finland, who played with pride and emotion following their own bitter elimination from gold medal contention by Sweden.
When it was over, when the Americans had come up empty on the scoreboard for the final 137:59 of competition and in ways larger than that in abdicating against the Fins, the Yanks spoke with differing degrees of self-loathing.
“Collapse,” was one of the words used by Ryan Suter. “Embarrassed … pretty ugly … unacceptable,” were four of the words from captain Zach Parise to NBC’s Pierre McGuire. “The game unraveled,” said coach Dan Bylsma.
Bylsma likely should have gone with a fresh Ryan Miller in net rather than Jonathan Quick for the bronze the way Canada should have gone with Martin Brodeur and not Patrick Roy for the bronze in Nagano in ’98 against
Finland after the semifinal shootout defeat to the Czech Republic and Dominik Hasek.
Nevertheless, the Americans could not score against Tuukka Rask and his Team Finland teammates, who bonded to give Teemu Selanne a going-away medal of honor in the 43-year-old future Hall-of-Famer’s farewell to the Olympics after six tournaments, four medals and 24 goals in 37 matches.
The Americans did not compete when a medal was on the line, did not grab with gusto the opportunity to medal in consecutive Olympics for the first time in more than half a century.
“There’s no reason we show up and not piss a drop,” Quick said.
The Americans looked sorry for themselves when no such thing is allowed at this level of competition. They couldn’t muster the pride or emotion or, yes, the professionalism, to overcome Friday’s disappointment and thus go out with heads held high.
This isn’t a reflection on American youth hockey, or the club selection process, or the absence of any one or two individuals from this team. The guys everyone agreed should be there, they didn’t come through in the end.
They went all six periods of the medal rounds without scoring a goal.
As such, this team that surely had it all within reach, is on its way home with nothing following an Olympic experience that, aside from the memory of the one T.J. Oshie Day, ultimately was nothing other than a massive disappointment.