Per The Province:
Shortly after he’d almost caused a nation-wide cardiac episode, Roberto Luongo was asked to describe the final couple of minutes of Team Canada’s semifinal against the Slovaks.
“Fun,” he said. “It was a lot of fun.”
Fun? Friday night was fun?
“It was the most fun I’ve ever had,” he said.
Which just means play dates at the Luongo household must be interesting.
Friday night, after spending the first 50 minutes in a Barcalounger with the remote, the Team Canada goalie had to stare down a ferocious Slovak attack that produced two goals and came within a desperation glove save by Luongo of scoring the tying marker in the game’s dying seconds.
As it was, Luongo got a piece of Vancouver Canuck teammate Pavol Demitra’s rebound try from the side of the net; the Canadians escaped with a 3-2 win; and the crowd at Canada Hockey Place got the Canada-U.S.A. gold-medal final they wanted.
And they’ll be able to enjoy it after they’ve changed their collective underwear.
“If we would have lost I don’t know if I’d be saying that,” Luongo said, clarifying his earlier assessment on the “fun” aspect of his evening. “But that’s what it’s all about right there.”
“It doesn’t take much for them to strike,” said team captain Scott Niedermayer. “We probably could have been better at the end but we got the win and we’re going where we want to go. We’re excited about that.”
Earlier Friday, the Americans advanced to the 2010 Games’ marquee event when they dispatched a lifeless Finnish side 6-1.
The Yanks scored six times in the game’s first 13 minutes, before coasting to the win. They’re now 5-0 in this tournament and, significantly, have played one fewer game than Canada.
“I think that was one of the best games in the tournament because I got to watch most of it,” said American goalie Ryan Miller.
Luongo, for his part, was in the same position for the first 2 1/2 periods of the Canada-Slovakia contest. Then, before you could say Milan Jurcina, all hell broke loose around him.
Canada, which was coming off a 7-3 beatdown of the Russians in the quarterfinal, opened a 3-0 lead on a pair of first-period deflection goals by Patrick Marleau and Brenden Morrow and Ryan Getzlaf’s power-play marker late in the second.
To that point, Luongo’s biggest challenge was staying awake. With two minutes to go in the second, he faced his first scoring chance of the game when he turned away Ziggy Palffy on a partial breakaway. It was also the ninth shot he’d faced.
But, with just over eight minutes left in the frame – and with the crowd already chanting, ‘We want USA, We want USA – Slovak defenceman Lubomir Vishnovsky banked a centering pass in off and Luongo and, suddenly, it was game on.
Michal Handzus followed with a goal on a rebound. And the suddenly inspired Slovaks spent the final minute storming Luongo.
The Canucks’ keeper would preserve the win with the save off Demitra but those last few minutes were, in the words of Morrow, “hairy.” It was also the first signs of vulnerability the Canadians had shown since their round-robin loss to the Americans.
Luongo was asked, if anything should be read into that.
“That the Slovaks are a good team and they deserve to be here,” he said. “I mean, they’ve got some guys who can play too. They were pressing at the end. That’s it. You can’t win every game 7-3.
“They were throwing every thing at the net. Pucks. Bodies. Anything.”
Slovak forward Marian Hossa, for his part, said his countrymen had made a statement against, “almost the best team ever.” The Slovaks also played the third period without star forward Marian Gaborik.
“We left everything on the ice,” said Hossa. “We tried to jam everything at Luongo and Pavol had a good chance at the end. But you know what, I’m proud of my team. We have to regroup tomorrow (in the bronze-medal game against Finland). It would be a dream come true if we got third place.”
Canada, meanwhile, has dreams of its own.
“It’s exciting,” said Luongo. “We can’t wait for Sunday. It’s going to be a great day, a great game. We’re really looking forward to it.”
You can think of about 33 million of his friends who share that sentiment.
