Goal’d!

Finally. Last night I got the kind of golden moment I had been waiting for during these Olympic games.

The U.S. women’s hockey team knocked off Canada and its 24-game-Olympic-win-and-four-consecutive-gold-medal streak. In dramatic fashion. At 2 a.m.

From the Associated Press …

Twenty long years after taking gold when the sport debuted in 1998 at Nagano, the United States snapped Canada's streak of four straight Olympic golds Thursday with a 3-2 shootout victory. 

Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson scored in the sixth round of the shootout to start the Americans piling over the boards, throwing gloves in the air before huddling and hugging on the ice. 

Gigi Marvin and Amanda Kessel also scored in the shootout. Monique Lamoureux-Morando tied it up with a breakaway with 6:21 left in regulation . Hilary Knight also had a goal.
Maddie Rooney made 29 saves for the win against their archrival. The 20-year-old goalie stopped the last two Canadian shooters in the shootout in Brianne Jenner and then Meghan Agosta on her second attempt.

I mean, we really enjoyed watching the Shib-Sibs earlier this week. But their bronze medal performance was nothing compared to last night. ... I do love me some hockey, especially when the stakes are high. Heck, I'm willing to call it the most exciting sport on the planet.

With Kates and the girls in bed by 9 last night, I went to watch the game in my basement den and would have it no other way. Lying on my couch, I was jerking and shouting and punching air with every shot on goal, every cleared puck, every body contact. And when the U.S. scored I clapped so hard my hand hurt.

The U.S. was relentless in their attack – especially in overtime – that I kept feeling as though they were destined to win that game. The opposite outcome would have been utterly heartbreaking. Yet when Maddie Rooney blocked that final shot in the shootout, I almost didn’t know how to react. All I did was sit and smile.

With icy weather snarling our region this week, the public schools canceled today for the second time this week and Kates and the girls are sleeping in this morning. Kates returned to teaching for the first time yesterday after her two-week bout with her flu. But after having Presidents Day off on Monday and then no school Tuesday and today because of the weather, she’s getting some bonus time to recover.

Meanwhile, I’m reporting to work, wide-eyed and ready to go after just found hours of sleep and no days off this week.

I'm thinking I have a date with the girls this evening to watch NBC's replay of the hockey game.

Good read

• A terrible plane crash once devastated US figure skating - and it still shapes it today