Canada win sets up rematch vs. U.S.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Now, Sequel Sunday.
Canada opened up a three-goal lead, then held off a late Slovakia comeback to win 3-2 in the Olympic semifinals on Friday night to earn a second chance against the United States in the gold-medal game.
The unbeaten Americans routed Finland 6-1 earlier Friday but must beat favored Canada for a second time in eight days on Sunday — they won 5-3 last weekend — to win their first Olympic gold since the Miracle on Ice in 1980.
"I can't wait," Canada forward Jarome Iginla said. "We love the chance of playing them again. There's a lot of rivalries with them — from world juniors through the ladies. They beat us. Now we have the opportunity to play them again. It's going to be exciting, for the gold medal."
Canada endured a tense closing 10 minutes to win it after mounting a 3-0 lead that wasn't threatened until Slovakia finally found its offense, if a little too late.
"Our whole group came unraveled at the end," coach Mike Babcock said. "It's a good lesson because if you stop playing, you're not going to win. You have to play a full 60 minutes."
Patrick Marleau, Brenden Morrow and Ryan Getzlaf scored in the opening 24 minutes to give Canada a 3-0 lead before Slovakia, an Olympic semifinalist for the first time, got goals from Lubomir Visnovsky and Michal Handzus less than four minutes apart in the third period.
"Yeah, it wasn't what we expected, for sure," Sidney Crosby said. "They got a couple of breaks and got some life. This was a good test for us."
Still, the Canadians played the game they needed to play to get to the game they simply had to play.
For Canada, the thought of not winning a gold medal in its national sport at home was unthinkable. Not getting a chance to go for that gold because of a possible tournament-derailing loss to the United States was unfathomable.
"I don't know if you need revenge when you are in the final," Crosby said. "You probably don't need any more motivation than that. This is going to be our biggest test yet."
Luongo, winning his third in a row in his NHL home arena since replacing the benched Martin Brodeur, faced only nine shots in the first two periods and 21 overall but lost his shutout when Visnovsky scored at 11:35 of the third.
