USA women’s hockey wins gold medal over Canada in Olympic overtime heart-stopper
She knew after she scored with just over two minutes left in regulation, and she knew when Megan Keller had the puck on her stick with one defender ahead of her in overtime.
“We’re gonna win the game,” Knight said. “It was just that simple.”
Team USA did just that, and now they are golden again.
After an eight-year wait, after falling in Beijing and after Team USA slowly climbed to the mountaintop over the course of this four-year cycle, they finally reached the summit Thursday with a 2-1 win over Canada on Keller’s golden goal that ended a classic, breathtaking Olympic final 4:07 into overtime.
Knight — Team USA’s five-time Olympian and the captain they wanted to send out with a bang in her final Olympic game — came through on the ice and off it to help seal the deal. Fifty-seven minutes in, Team USA was on the ropes, a largely Canadian crowd bearing down on them, trying to will their team to keep a tenuous 1-0 lead.
With the Americans skating 6-on-5, Knight tipped in Laila Edwards’ shot from above the slot with just 2:04 to go in regulation, handing the United States the breakthrough it so desperately needed in the nick of time.
Then, in the locker room before overtime, she asked the group, “Who’s gonna be the hero?”
“We need the hero. The hero’s in this room,” Knight recounted afterward, gold medal around her neck. “There’s so much love and support in this room, we just want somebody to have it. … Meg was our hero.”
Canada had a trio of good chances in overtime, including a Daryl Watts breakaway that Abbey Murphy skated 150 feet to break up on the backcheck.
Then, Taylor Heise’s outlet pass found Keller with one defender in front of her, and she promptly deked her way around Claire Thompson. Then she poked a backhand through Ann-Renée Desbiens to end the game and start the bedlam.
“Meg was flying up the ice,” Heise said. “And she was calling for the puck and I kind of wanted to change, so I chucked it up to her and I didn’t even see what she did.”
Kendall Coyne Schofield turned to Heise and asked who passed it.
“Me!” Heise told her.
“I just saw her get the puck and she was gone,” Coyne Schofield said. “I didn’t see the end. It happened so fast.”
“I wasn’t really thinking or planning anything,” Keller said. “Just trying to take what was given.”
Team USA streamed onto the ice in a giant group hug. Sticks and helmets and gloves clattered onto the ice. Keller was mobbed. Coach John Wroblewski put his hands in his face, then succumbed to sobs. An American flag materialized. Two more American flags materialized.
By the time Kelly Pannek reached the mixed zone, she had a different flag tied around her neck.
“In Keller We Trust,” it said.
“In my opinion,” Pannek said, “I think this is the best hockey team women’s hockey has ever seen.”
It was challenged Thursday beyond what it ever had been before.
For the game’s first 30 minutes, the United States looked like Ilia Malinin with sticks and gloves: nervous and jittery, succumbing to a more experienced Canada side. Kristen O’Neill’s shorthanded goal off a 2-on-1 rush 54 seconds into the second period pierced the air of inevitability they’d carried all tournament.
It was the first goal Team USA had allowed in 352:17 of game time, their first time trailing all tournament and even as they started to find their groove and possess the puck, they missed chance after chance.
Inevitable as it looked all tournament long that the Americans would cruise to gold, it was only right for them to face their greatest challenge at the very end. That they overcame it in such a fashion will make Thursday all the more meaningful.
Canada, with exceptions in 1998 and 2018, has owned the sport of women’s hockey since it was added to the Olympics, winning six of eight gold medals. It belongs to America now, though, with a young U.S. roster that is poised to dominate for years to come.
“I feel like throughout the game,” Lee Stecklein said, “we remembered how much we believe in each other.”
Knight transformed belief into reality. Keller turned reality into jubilation.
“The bond we created as a group, we’re really a family,” Keller said. “I think that showed tonight.
