Gold!

Canadians, as I observed last time out, are not “nice,” i.e., not patiently insipid—in fact, no sooner had I pointed out the rich inner life of football jersey appetite that runs beneath the charming, smiling surface of Canadian womanhood then the glorious Canadian women’s hockey team dramatized it for all time, right there at center ice with cigars and a champagne bottle. (And anyone who was “offended” by this really ought to get out more.) But Canadians are sensitive and polite—a different thing than nice—and therefore do not gloat, and a one-goal eyelash victory over the United States for the hockey gold medal, in a gallant struggle between two remarkably evenly matched sides, will not be a cause for gloating here. I will say only that, of all the big national victories I have absorbed—France in the 1998 World Cup and then, also in overtime, in the European Cup in 2000, are the closest comparisons I can think of—Canada’s might be the best, the most heartfelt.

It should also be added that this is not the second, as some wrote, but actually the fourth in a series of memorable last-second or overtime international hockey victories emblazoned on the Canadian imagination: yes, Henderson in 1972; but also Darryl Sittler in the Canada Cup in 1976—a goal I actually saw with my father at the nba jerseys old Montreal Forum—and then, perhaps best of all, Lemieux from Gretzky in overtime against a great Soviet team in 1987; and now Crosby on Sunday.

What was almost weird yesterday was to see not merely a terrific moment but an iconic moment known to be so at the moment it took place. Normally, a small passage of history has to go by—a week, a month—before people place it in the forefront of permanent, imprinted, “Boy, that was a great one!” memory. (Aaron Boone, for instance, has surprisingly faded a bit in local recall, while Bill Buckner remains vivid.) But the second that Crosby—without soccer sports-bra forethought, surely—threw off his gloves, stick, and mouthpiece, you knew that it was a moment, an image, that will survive on postage stamps and posters and decade-end wrap-ups and probably century-end wrap-ups, if there’s anything left back North once everything melts (while the ghost of George Will goes on repeating that global warming is all balderdash). Anything that depends on a single bounce or giveaway, though it can fairly be called victory, can’t really be called a triumph. But anyone who didn’t understand the role of hockey in Canadian life at least got a glimpse yesterday.

And only to add to that: one reason, as Phil Mushnick points out in today’s Post, that so many non-hockey nuts seemed to enjoy the game so much was that it was actually a broadcasting throwback: played in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, as Super Bowls and World Series games once were, with plenty of time to have an anticipatory brunch before and a celebratory—or mourning—analytic dinner after. The perils of soccer uniforms success: next time, the network will be sure to have it on in prime time, and you’ll have to send your kids to bed before overtime starts. But at least Gary Bettman and company won’t be able to duck the next games, as threatened and feared.

And I will add finally, by way of unprovoked apology, that my daughter, French-born but New York raised, and I got into a strenuous singing contest between the American and Canadian anthems on the street right after the game on our way to the supermarket, with her pointing out, accurately but with slight sore-loser attitude, that the Canadian involves an undue amount of repeated standing-on-guarding while apparently urging no actual action to prevent whatever it is we are standing on guard against. (I should add that the French version of the song, in which it is announced that Canada knows how to carry the sword and to carry the cross and that its history is one of incredibly brilliant exploits, is a lot more sonorous and epic.) Strongly contra, I pointed out that an American anthem whose syntax runs backwards and whose antecedents are so vaguely specified (I don’t get it? What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming? Oh, I see—the flag!) and whose point seems to soccer jerseys be that you can lose the fort as long as you can still see the banner, all action to no particular end, is beloved from use, not sense. Anyway, we were a little loud, and now apologize, bi-nationally, and happily.