VANCOUVER, British Columbia—Canada pulled out a sudden-death victory in men's ice hockey Sunday, earning the one of its record 14 gold medals that matters most to this hockey-mad nation of 34 million.
After a spirited U.S. team clawed back from a 2-0 deficit, Canada's best-known player, Sidney Crosby, scored the winning goal on a pass from Jarome Iginla, one of the few holdovers from Canada's last gold-medal team, from 2002. Mr. Crosby threw his mouth guard, gloves and stick into the air and his teammates piled on him in joy. The final score was 3-2.
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European Pressphoto Agency
Sidney Crosby takes the game-winning shot for goal over U.S. goalie Ryan Miller.
To the side stood the U.S. team, one of the youngest and most surprising of the tournament. They won the silver—far better than most had predicted two weeks ago—but again failed to beat Canada in a gold-medal game, having lost in 2002 too.
After the game, while his jubilant countrymen screamed and waved huge Canadian flags in the stands, Mr. Crosby said, "It doesn't even feel real. It feels like a dream."
The victory sealed what for Canada was an emotional Olympics, embraced across the vast nation in a way few Olympics are. At first, the Games were marred by the death of a Georgian luge athlete and then by Canada's stumbling out of the gate, casting doubts that its vaunted plans to win medals would pan out.
But the local fans remained faithful and, by the second week, when the Canadian medals began to pile up, they were exuberant. Norway and the Soviet Union previously shared the record for gold medals in the Winter Games, 13.
Fans across Canada celebrated Sunday's hockey victory wildly, with the streets of major cities thronged with cars honking and crowds shouting. In Vancouver, which was transformed from a sleepy-chic city on the Pacific to the country's emotional capital for 17 days, fans paralyzed the downtown as they flowed out of bars and restaurants onto the rainy streets.
In the arena, fans applauded the U.S. team, especially its star goalie, Ryan Miller, who finished the tournament with the best goals-against average of any goalie and was a key reason for the Americans' surprising run to the gold-medal game. The team lost just one game in the tournament—Sunday's—and had beaten Canada, 5-3, in a preliminary round.
The team's silver medal bore out the strategy of U.S. general manager Brian Burke. He resisted the temptation to recruit the most talented, highest-paid players America had to offer. Instead, he selected players he thought would embrace the very different form of hockey played at the Olympics—a game with a simplified playbook often won by the team that can skate the hardest the longest.
"We started a new trend with USA hockey," the goalie, Mr. Miller, said after the game. "We felt like we deserved to be in that position."
Canada took the harder road to the final. After lashing perennial weakling Norway, 8-0, Canada needed to shootout to eke out a 3-2 victory over a surprisingly tough Swiss team.
Then it hit its biggest stumble with the loss to the U.S. But it scored decisive wins over Germany and a touted Russia squad, then it hung on against Slovakia to make Sunday's final.
The U.S. team almost scored first on Sunday. Midway through the first period, the Americans slipped the puck under Canada goalie Roberto Luongo, where it rested on the goal line. Later that period, Canada's Jonathan Toews rifled in a rebound of a Mike Richards shot to make it 1-0. Then Corey Perry made it 2-0 on a broken play in the U.S. zone, and things began to look bleak for the Americans.
But Team USA rebounded with a goal to make it 2-1, then silenced the partisan crowd with a scrappy goal by Zach Parise within the last 30 seconds that sent the game into overtime.
Nearly eight minutes into OT, Mr. Crosby forced the puck into a U.S. corner. A Team USA clearing attempt failed, and Mr. Iginla sent a quick pass to Mr. Crosby, who snapped the puck between Mr. Miller's legs.
Canada exhaled. As defenseman Duncan Keith put it, "It's as much a relief as it is excitement."
Write to Ian Johnson at ian.johnson@wsj.com, Reed Albergotti at reed.albergotti@wsj.com and Adam Thompson at adam.thompson@wsj.com
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