GANGNEUNG, South Korea (Reuters) - Kirill Kaprizov scored in overtime to lead the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) past a feisty Germany 4-3 on Sunday to win the men’s ice hockey gold before joining his team mates to defy a ban by singing the Russian national anthem during the medal ceremony.
The Russians, competing as neutral athletes at Pyeongchang as punishment for a years-long Russian doping scandal, came back from one-goal down on a goal by Nikita Gusev with less than a minute left in regulation time to force overtime in one of the most pulsating finals in the history of Olympic hockey.
At their medal ceremony, the players team sang the Russian anthem over the sound of the Olympic anthem at the Gangneung Hockey Centre despite being barred from having their flag raised or anthem played.
The game was played hours after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided not to restore their delegation’s Olympic status, which would have enabled them to march under their flag at the closing ceremony later on Sunday.
The team’s assistant captain Ilya Kovalchuk said the players had discussed beforehand whether to sing the anthem if they were to win, and they agreed they would.
“We knew that we will do it if we win,” said Kovalchuk, the all-time leading Russian goal-scorer in Olympic play.
Singing the Russian anthem on the field of play is a violation of the IOC’s rules on neutrality, which were imposed on Russia as part of sanctions punishing the nation over systematic doping across many sports.
The victory marked the first time a team from Russia have won the gold medal in hockey since 1992, when the so-called Unified Team representing Russia and five other former Soviet republics beat Canada for the Olympic championship.
“It means a lot. We didn’t win Olympics since ‘92,” Kovalchuk said. “It was a while ago. That was our dream. That was my dream for when I was five years old, when I started playing. It’s great and it feels good.”
WILD GAME
The game was a thriller from the start and ended with flair, a perfect one-time slap shot from Kaprizov that ripped past German goaltender Danny aus den Birken with Germany’s Patrick Reimer off for high sticking.
Kaprizov had been fed the puck by the other Russian hero of the game, Gusev, who netted two third period goals, including the one that tied it, sending the game to overtime with less than a minute to go and the Germans looking like they were about to pull off a huge upset. Gusev finished as the Olympic tournament’s points leader with four goals and eight assists.
The Russians found themselves evenly matched by a German team who surprised the hockey world by making it to their first Olympic final. With the loss, the Germans won silver, their best finish ever in Olympic ice hockey and their first medal since a bronze at the Innsbruck games in 1976.
On paper the final shouldn’t have been a fair fight, but the Germans, playing hockey for a country primarily obsessed with football, skated evenly with the OAR, a team loaded with top home-grown talent from Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League, seen as the world’s second-best league after the NHL, and led by ex-NHL all stars Pavel Datsyuk, their captain, and Kovalchuk.
The Germans had punched above their weight to get to the final, beating hockey powerhouses Sweden and Canada, and they were not about to quit with the gold medal on the line.
They came back twice from one-goal deficits and took the lead late on a goal by Jonas Muller, who beat Vasili Koshechkin between the legs, only to have their hearts broken by Gusev and Kaprizov.
“It’s a little tough right now because we all felt we could have won that game, but that’s hockey, that’s just the way it is,” German coach Marco Sturm said. “We all thought we would sit at home and watch the final on the couch. But here we are. The boys are going to bring silver home and they should be proud.”
Golden goal lifts OAR to Olympic men's hockey title over Germany in classic
- Kirill Kaprizov’s overtime goal lifts OAR to win in thrilling final
- Germany took, then lost lead in final seven minutes of regulation
- Players and fans sing Russian anthem in defiance of IOC ban
Russia did not in fact win their first gold medal in men’s hockey in 26 years with a heart-stopping 4-3 overtime win over Germany on Sunday afternoon.
Instead a team competing neutrally as Olympic Athletes from Russia, the IOC’s inspired nomenclatural workaround to incorporate Russians at the Pyeongchang Games despite a wholesale doping ban, held off a stingy German team in the game of the tournament to capture Olympic men’s hockey gold, the first for a Russian-affiliated team since Albertville 1992.
Kirill Kaprizov’s one-time winner from the right circle on a power play in overtime followed a white-knuckle finish to regulation that saw the OAR team take back the lead they’d surrendered only to fall behind again before scoring a last-gasp short-handed equalizer with their goaltender pulled.
All in the final six and a half minutes.
“It was the craziest game ever,” said OAR forward Ilya Kovalchuk, the ex-NHL star whose five goals in South Korea made him the top-scoring Olympian from Russia of all time. “When we had the penalty with two minutes to go, I honestly thought we won’t be Olympic champions.”
The furious sequence started when Kontinental Hockey League star Nikita Gusev fired in a gorgeous top-shelf goal off the goalie’s mask to break a 1-all deadlock with 6:39 left in the third period, a score that felt like a game-winner after the teams had gone more than a full period spanning the second intermission without finding the back of the net.
But the celebration lasted all of eight seconds as Germany quickly equalized on Dominic Kahun’s second goal of the afternoon, followed by Jonas Müller’s score with 3:16 left to put the Germans ahead 3-2.
Just over a minute later OAR forward Sergei Kalinin was called for a two-minute tripping penalty, leaving the favorites short-handed for effectively the remainder of regulation.
That’s when Gusev whipped a slap shot off German goaltender Danny aus den Birken’s right shoulder to tie the score with 55.5 seconds left and send it into 4-on-4 sudden-death overtime.
From there Russia took control, nearly winning it with 13:30 left in the extra period when a sure winner by Kovalchuk somehow caught the left pad of a sprawling Aus Den Birken, who preserved the deadlock with the best and most important save of the Olympics.
But it was for naught as Kaprizov, who also had three assists on the day, ripped a slap shot past the goalie with 10:20 left in overtime for the golden goal, kicking off pandemonium among the Russian supporters as they celebrated hockey gold for the first time since the first Winter Games of the post-Soviet era.
“It’s a little tough right now because we all felt we could have won that game, but that’s hockey,” Germany coach Marco Sturm said. “It’s just the way it is. I think we all thought we’d sit there and watch the final on the couch at home, but here we are. The boys are going to bring silver home and they should be very proud of that.”
The awkward accoutrements of the aftermath, as the Not Russian anthem played while the Not Russian flag was elevated to the rafters, did nothing the dampen the enthusiasm of the many red-clad supporters at the Gangneung Hockey Centre, where the upper bowl of the 10,000-seat arena was festooned with Russian banners and flags with costumed supporters in full throat.
One row of fans wore coordinated red shirts spelling out RUSSIA IN MY HEART while a few rows down a pair of groups spelled out the team’s nickname, RED MACHINE, in both English and Cyrillic. The hundreds who stayed to watch their team receive their medals joined the players in defiantly singing the banned Russian national anthem as a recording of the International Olympic Committee anthem played over the arena sound system while the Olympic flag was raised, making a mockery of the resolution that enabled their participation.
None of it bothered Kovalchuk, finally a gold medalist in his fifth Winter Olympics, who said the players had discussed whether they’d sing the anthem beforehand. Mostly, the 34-year-old was thrilled about the gold.
“Since I was five years old, when I started to play hockey, this was the dream of my late father,” he said. “This was my dream.”
The victory came one day after the IOC ruled against restoring the delegation’s status, preventing the Russian athletes from marching in under their country’s flag at Sunday night’s closing ceremony.
The OAR team had entered Sunday’s final on a head of steam since losing their opening match to Slovakia, winning their next four games by an aggregate score of 21-3. They were given their a stiff challenge by Germany, who overcame a slow start to reach the gold medal game for the first time in the country’s history with upsets of Sweden and Canada, a pair of traditional powers who they’d never previously beaten on Olympic ice.
But their spirited bid for a Miracle on Ice redux was cut short in the most dramatic fashion possible as the OAR side became only the second team in the history of Olympic men’s ice hockey to win the gold medal after opening with a loss, joining Canada’s 2002 champions.
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