Americans, Canadians Battle for Gold

The puck drops this afternoon on what is likely the biggest hockey game in decades as Team USA faces off against Team Canada for the Olympic gold medal.

“This is the greatest thing that has happened for a long, long time,” Team Canada executive director Wayne Gretzky said Saturday. “This will be the most-watched hockey game in the world — ever.”

For Team Canada, it is a chance to bring a gold medal back to the country that invented the sport for the first time since 1952.

For Team USA, it is the opportunity to relive the country’s most cherished sports moment, the 1980 “Miracle on Ice.”

The United States has a 24-5 scoring advantage through five games (4-0-1).

But if the game is low scoring and one goal means the difference between gold and silver, Canada has some of the finest scorers ever in Lemieux and Yzerman.

“They know us, we know them,” Brooks said. “There are no secrets in this one.”

Gretzky can only guess at the letdown Canada will feel if it comes this close to winning, only to lose to (oh, no) the United States — or, conversely, the elation if it wins.

“Nobody remembers who wins the silver,” he said.