Miller Shines, but Canada Wins Gold

What a shame for Ryan Miller to have ended his brilliant Olympic run with a goal he should have stopped. A poor-angle shot by Sidney Crosby seemed to have caught him by surprise, and he committed what I always thought was the Cardinal sin of leaving your stick off the ice when in position, leaving the five-hole particularly vulnerable.

(I could be 100% wrong about that goal, but it looked to me like a stick on the ice would have stopped it. I will correct this if I later discover I am wrong.)

When I played goalie, almost to a fault I made sure the stick was on the ice if at all possible. Perhaps I didn't control rebounds as well as I should have. But I very rarely got beat in the five hole on the ice.

I was also pretty good on breakaways, although I'm sure that was in large part because I was too slow to fall for any dekes.

Regardless, Miller rightfully won the MVP of the Olympic hockey tournament. Hockey gets it right. It's happened in the NHL playoffs, too. There's no reason the MVP of a series or tournament has to come from the winning team. It helps, but shouldn't be a requirement.

So the USA was the best team throughout the Olympics, and even beat Canada in six full periods of hockey. But timing is crucial, and Canada got the most important goal. Congratulations to our friends in the Great White North, eh.