
I'm buying Marie-Philip Poulin a beer. And a cigar.
Poulin scored both goals in the 2-0 win over the United States in Vancouver, tied the game in Sochi with 54.6 seconds remaining in the 3rd period, and then scored the overtime game winner to give the Canadian women a gold medal with a 3-2 win.
Canada pulled out the win even though the team could not score on U.S. goalie Jessie Vetter for the first 56 minutes.
Brianne Jenner started the comeback with a deflected goal at the 16:34 mark in the 3rd period. Poulin got a fortunate rebound via U.S. goalie Jessie Vetter to score the tiebreaker.
Previous coverage:
---
The post was red, Canadian red.
Yes, the puck hit the post as the U.S. was trying for an empty net goal. Then again, the U.S. had that opportunity when the linesman prevented Catherine Ward from getting to the puck.
The linesman should not have been the reason why a team won a gold medal. So you could complain about the puck hitting the post. Just make sure you acknowledge the linesman's miscue.
This way, and in reality, the game was settled on the ice — the way it should be.
---
Kevin Dineen didn't start Shannon Szabados against the United States in the round-robin game, but did start Szabados in the gold medal game. Clearly, the strategy was designed to throw off the U.S. but not having a recent game with Szabados in goal.
Charline Labonté played in goal for Canada in the earlier game. Jessie Vetter played for the U.S. in both games against Canada.
Szabados had 27 saves in the gold medal game; Vetter had 28 saves.
---
The U.S. also led 1-0 after 2 periods of the round-robin game against the Canadians. The difference was that the U.S. scored the second goal first and held on almost to the end. Both scores ended up being 3-2 Canada.
Canada scored 3 early goals against Switzerland in the semifinal, so the scoring drought was rather long. Even though Canada won the gold medal, the team went 105:01, almost 2 hours without a goal. Yet they came through at a crucial time.
---
This might have been the final Olympics for Hayley Wickenheiser, who is now 35. She lost her captain status. But Wickenheiser drew the penalty that Hilary Knight took that set up the winning goal for Canada.
She has passed to shooters rather than take shots herself. She has been in the spotlight, especially in NBC's coverage, because she is so well-known.
Well, Wickenheiser now has 4 gold medals. And in 4 years, she'll still be younger than Teemu Selanne of the Finland men's team is right now.
And if that isn't enough, Wickenheiser was also elected to the International Olympic Committee's athletes commission.
---
Canada has now won four straight Olympic gold medals; this translates into 20 straight Olympic game wins. 5 games per Olympics for 4 straight Olympics.
The last Canadian Olympic game loss was the 1998 gold medal game in Nagano, Japan.
The U.S. has won 5 of the last 7 World Championships. But the Olympics belong to Canada.
---
Going into Thursday, no women's hockey team had come back from a 2-goal deficit in the 3rd period in medal play. On Thursday, both Switzerland and Canada pulled off that feat. Sweden was up 2-0 before the Swiss scored 4 straight goals. The Swedes added a late goal.
The bronze was Switzerland's first medal in women's hockey.
---
"Shot. Scores. It's Poulin again. Canada wins gold in overtime."
That was the call from Mark Lee, who called the game with Cassie Campbell-Pascall for CBC. I have a source who got me the CBC call of the women's hockey gold medal game.
I didn't get to watch much so far, but here were my impressions.
-- Camera angles. CBC had a great angle of the linesman interference along the boards. And the CBC had a great replay of Hilary Knight's penalty in overtime.
-- Local colour. CBC had cameras at bars in Montréal, Toronto, and Calgary and the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. What a wonderful visual to connect people watching the games to the telecast.
-- Great Olympic stories. Poulin scored her 2nd and 3rd goals of the tournament. She was recovering from an injury last fall. Worthy of an Olympic type story even on the NBC Group. And Meghan Johnson was playing with a broken hand. Mark Lee said she was her hand numbed in cold before the game.
-- Pierre McGuire wondered whether the U.S. would switch to 2 forwards and 1 defenseman in the overtime. Mark Lee called that switch in the moment; NBC never did. During the overtime, CBC ran a graphic as to how poorly Canada had been on the power play; NBC never gave that a thought.
---
Jennifer Jones and her team made Olympic history becoming the first women's curling team to go undefeated. The finale came in the gold medal game with a 6-3 win over Sweden.
The 9th end made the difference as Maria Prytz threw the last Swedish stone and knocked out her own stone, leaving two points for the Canadians.
Jones matched the undefeated mark of Kevin Martin and Canada in men's curling in 2012 in Vancouver. Martin and Canada is the only men's curling team to go undefeated in the Olympics.
This was the first Olympic gold medal for Canada in women's curling since 1998. Canada slowly let the 2010 gold medal slip away to Sweden, winners in 2006 and 2010.
Despite Jones being a 4-time Canadian champion and a world champion, this was her first Olympics.
---
Buddy Cole showed us what media outlets wouldn't show us. Not just the protest zone, but how far away the protest zone is from Sochi. 70 km is one thing, but the Colbert Report segment showed us the full route.
And on top of that, Cole got into trouble in the protest zone because you had to seek permission from the Russian government to protest in the protest zone.
Major news outlets are usually afraid to cover protests in protest zones. The fact that the protest zone is so far away is a story in itself. Once again, the Colbert Report comes to the rescue.
Using Cole/Scott Thompson actually in Sochi was brilliant. And Thompson did so well from asking strangers on the street where the gay propaganda is to getting as close as NBC would allow (but very far away) to spotting the Olympic flame and point out something flaming.
---
The good news is that U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper bet a case of beer for each of the U.S.-Canada hockey battles. The bad news for Harper is that Obama bet American beer.
Seriously, while not a lot got done at the Three Amigos summit, good to see Obama and Harper have a bit of fun with the hockey matchups.
Right now, Harper is up a case of beer, but the men's game may change that today.
---

I saw this billboard several times on Facebook. The billboard is on the Edens Expressway in the northern suburbs of Chicago.
Patrick Kane (United States) and Jonathan Toews (Canada) flank Justin Bieber on the billboard. Kane and Toews are star Chicago NHL players.
The billboard is owned by Skokie, IL based freight broker Command Transportation, and the company has had fun with the billboard before.
Bieber upset hockey fans in Chicago by stepping on the team's logo at the United Center. And everything else Bieber has done lately.
---
Photo credit: AP Photo/Julio Cortez // @CommandSign
Video credit: Colbert Report