For the incomparable Marie-Philip Poulin, loss to the U.S. an agonizing end to an unforgettable effort
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Chris Jones reports from Milan.
Marie-Philip Poulin was on the ice when the Americans scored in overtime, chasing back. She saw the puck go in, and she continued skating, behind the Canadian net, around the boards, to the bench. She slammed the door behind her.
For the greatest player in the history of women’s hockey, and one of the all-time Olympians, it was an agonizing end to an unforgettable effort. For the first time in her five gold-medal games, she didn’t score, and her lifetime rivals got one back, 2-1.
She threw her stick, and it clattered in the space between her aching knees and the boards. Laura Stacey, her teammate, and her wife, sat beside her on the bench. They both folded into themselves, their heads disappearing into their hands, in twin poses of despair.
It was a devastating loss for the Canadians, who led 1-0 with just over two minutes to play. Hilary Knight did what Poulin normally does and tied the game. Megan Keller did what Poulin normally does, too, and won it in overtime.
Poulin, who had missed two games after injuring her knee in the preliminary round — including Canada’s 5-0 loss to the U.S. — had put in 29 shifts, the same number she wears on her jersey.
“It hurts,” Stacey said after, in tears, when she was asked about what she saw in Poulin. “It sucks to see her in pain, but man, you would never know. She did everything possible she could.”
Stacey couldn’t talk any more after that.
Megan Keller’s golden goal in overtime gave the United States a 2-1 win over Canada in the Olympic women’s hockey final.
Poulin was not the best player on the ice. That might have been Stacey. But her presence alone seemed to change the way the Canadians played. A final that felt doomed at the start was instead charged with better emotions for nearly 58 minutes. There was hope where there had been dread. There was possibility where there had been none.
“I’m truly proud of how we showed up today,” Poulin said. “People did not believe in us. We truly believed in ourselves.”
That’s what she did for Canada, to the end.
She has not, and will not, say that these were her last Olympics. She has constantly surprised, and she might surprise again.
But she’s 34, nearly 35, and it’s hard to imagine that she has four more years of hockey in her.
It’s likely that these are her final scenes.
Megan Keller scored 4:07 into overtime, as the United States defeated Canada 2-1 to win the Olympic women’s hockey gold medal.
After she watched the Americans celebrate, she stood in the middle of a row of her teammates to receive her silver medal with her hands behind her back. It was an excruciating wait. Her name was finally announced, and the crowd, filled with Canadian flags, roared in appreciation.
She’ll remember that sound.
Her three gold medals, hidden away in the home she shares with Stacey in Montreal, will one day provide still more consolation.
So, too, will her memories of the goals, all hers, that won them.
She thought she might get another. She and Stacey started overtime on the ice together. She lined up for the opening faceoff, and looked her wife in her eyes, flush with belief.
“You train for those moments,” she said. “You live for those moments.”
Three-time Olympic champion and Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin shook hands and hugged the now two-time Olympic champion and American captain Hilary Knight, after the United States beat Canada 2-1 in overtime of the Olympic women’s hockey final.
She whistled a shot just wide. If that puck had found the net instead, and she had lifted her arms in one last celebration, that would have felt like a more fitting ending, closer to what she deserved.
“It would have been a hell of a story,” she said.
In another sense, it would have felt almost ungrateful to ask for more for her, or from her.
Before one of the games of her life, in the dying minutes of the warmup, only four players remained on the ice. The rest had taken their leave.
In the American end, Kirsten Simms and Laila Edwards made their slow circles.
In Canada’s, Poulin passed puck after puck to Stacey, and Stacey rifled them into the net.
When they were finished, finally, Poulin retrieved a black plastic bucket and pushed it with her stick toward the crease. She and Stacey each took a knee and pulled off a glove, and together they picked up the loose pucks and dropped them into the bucket, the way children collect eggs on Easter.
If this is Poulin’s last Olympics, she will miss the competition. She will miss the adrenaline, and the stakes, and the tests of her all-world mettle.
But it will be those quiet moments, when she had the ice nearly to herself, that she will miss the most. She will miss hockey’s simple demonstrations of devotion and grace, like when two women who love the game and each other tidied up after themselves, leaving nothing undone, leaving things better than they found them.
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