All the members of the United States men’s hockey team playing in the Sochi Games were born after the Americans’ shocking victory at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., against a Soviet Union team stocked with Red Army soldiers and stars. Four times since, the teams met in Olympic competition, with the Americans compiling a 1-2-1 record, but none of the games were on Russian soil. After a 34-year wait, the Russians finally got the chance on Saturday to be the home team against a U.S. squad infinitely more experienced and skilled than the one that pulled off the upset known as the “Miracle on Ice” on the way to winning the Olympic gold medal. The Americans view this Olympics as a chance to write their own feel-good success story, one that the people back home will talk about for another 34 years. The U.S. team certainly showed a flair for drama against Russia, delivering more action and suspense than could be contained in three regulation periods. It took one overtime and then some before the Americans, led by T.J. Oshie, secured a 3-2 shootout victory at Bolshoi Arena in front of a partisan crowd of 11,678 that included the Russian leader, President Vladimir V. Putin. With the victory, the U.S. extended its record to 2-0 and earned the respect of the Russians and their fans and two points in the standings. The Americans return to the ice Sunday for their final preliminary-round game, against Slovenia (1-1). Video | Sochi Video Notebook: T. J. Oshie T. J. Oshie, who took six of the Americans’ eight shots, scoring on four of them to lift the team to a victory over Russia, spoke to the media after the game. Oshie, a Washington native who plays for the St. Louis Blues, was named to the U.S. team primarily because of his prowess in killing penalties, an unglamorous job that consists of trying to prevent the other team’s best players from scoring when they have a man advantage. It was not lost on the Team U.S.A. coaching staff that Oshie, 27, also is outstanding one-on-one against goaltenders, a skill that comes into play only on occasion, on penalty shots and shootouts. The spotlight fell on Oshie after regulation and overtime ended with the United States and Russia tied at 2. Six times Coach Dan Bylsma sent Oshie out against Russia’s Sergei Bobrovski, a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets who last season was named the best goaltender in the N.H.L. Four times Oshie beat Bobrovski with moves that, toward the end, he was making up on the fly. He opened the shootout by putting the puck between Bobrovski’s pads. After the first three shooters for both teams took their turns, it was all Oshie, the rest of the shootout. To his mild surprise, Bylsma kept calling his number. After overshooting the net, Oshie beat Bobrovski again with a shot between his pads, beat him high and, after another miss, ended the game with another shot between his pads. The United States team celebrated after beating Russia in a shootout on Saturday. Russia’s third shooter, Ilya Kovalchuk, the former New Jersey Devil who retired from the N.H.L. to play in Russia for the Kontinental Hockey League team in St. Petersburg, matched Oshie’s first score to extend the shootout. Pavel Datsyuk, one of only two Russian players born before 1980, also beat the U.S. goaltender, Jonathan Quick, as did Kovalchuk a second time, but the two of them could not outdo Oshie, who moved the puck back and forth with his stick in front of Bobrovski like a hypnotist dangling a watch. “He’s got a repertoire of moves, I don’t think the goalie knows what he’s going to do,” said Oshie’s teammate, Patrick Kane, who missed a shot on a breakaway during the overtime. Like the top servers in the game in tennis, Oshie does not give away where he is going to put the puck with his approach, which is the same every time. Bylsma could tell Oshie did not expect to keep getting sent out over and over. After the first of his misses, he skated to the farthest end of the bench, forcing Bylsma to strain his neck to find him. As the shootout wore on, Oshie’s teammates became just a few more spectators in the crowd. “A lot of our guys were watching the spectacle, the show and the shooting and commenting on it,” Bylsma said. And what was Oshie thinking? “Just trying to keep the game going and put the puck in the net,” he said, adding, “and thinking of something else I could do. I had to keep coming up with moves.” Bobrovsky sad: “Of course it’s disappointing when the same person scores four goals on you. But what can you do?” Russia has a passionate interest in biathlon, and its figure skaters delivered an early boost of gold-medal enthusiasm. But nothing matters as much as men’s hockey. Russia’s performance will largely determine how the entire Games are judged. Russia appeared to get a go-ahead goal late in the third, but the score was waved off because the net was slightly off its moorings. Vladislav Tretyak, the legendary Soviet goalie and former national coach who is now president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, said in an interview after the game that the officials had made the correct decision. “The rules are written in such a way that if the goal is moved even a little bit, the point is not counted,” Tretyak said. “And it was moved.” As one of the most eminent voices in Russian hockey, Tretyak’s verdict on the officiating was likely to dispel some of the griping and conspiracy theories that quickly emerged. Aleksei Pushkov, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian Parliament and a frequent critic of the United States and the West, alleged misconduct by the referees to aid the Americans. In a visit to the American house on Friday, Putin told Scott Blackmun, the United States Olympic Committee chief executive, that many fans in Russia recognize and revere the American players. They certainly now recognize Oshie, who went to high school and played hockey in Warroad, Minn., population 1,781, known as Hockeytown U.S.A. He is the eighth hockey player from Warroad to go the Olympics; the first seven returned with a medal.
No comments:
Post a Comment