Red, White, Blue and Gold

She couldn’t hold back the flood of tears that blurred her eyes and made Big Hat arena a mad swirl of colors and noise, and after a while, Lisa Brown-Miller didn’t bother suppressing her sobs.

There was no reason to hold anything back, no need to save her energy for another tedious practice at some chilly rink. She had pursued her dream and she had caught it. And as members of the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team prepared to take their place in history Tuesday to accept the first Olympic medals in their sport, Brown-Miller wept under the weight of the occasion.

“It all just caved in on me,” said Brown-Miller, the team’s oldest player at 31 and one of three players who has been with the U.S. program since its inception in 1990. “I feel like I’ve made a ton of sacrifices, but everyone else has too. Now I can put my skates on the shelf and know I gave it everything I have and that the team gave everything it had.”

They gave up jobs and vacations and “normal” lives to reach this day, and not for a moment did they regret the hardships that preceded their 3-1 victory over Canada in the gold medal game of the inaugural women’s hockey tournament.

When the final buzzer sounded and they hurled their sticks and gloves into the air in an explosion of joy, none of the obstacles they cleared mattered anymore. They had defeated their best and fiercest rival, the team that had perched a step above them on the medal stand at each of the four world championships, and they had prevailed in a game that said as much about their resolve as about their power play or defense.

“I was tired of hearing ‘O, Canada,’ ” Brown-Miller said. “I had not heard our anthem played after a major tournament. I really wanted to hear it.”

It’s their theme song now, thanks to power-play goals by Gretchen Ulion--who plans to retire from hockey and resume her teaching career--and Shelley Looney, and an empty-net goal by Sandra Whyte. Ulion lifted a shot from the left circle over the shoulder of Canadian goaltender Manon Rheaume at 2:38 of the second period and Looney deflected a shot by Whyte past Rheaume’s leg at 10:59 of the third period with Danielle Goyette serving a penalty for body checking.

Goyette increased her tournament-high goal-scoring total to eight when she converted a centering pass from behind the net at 15:59 of the third period, also during a power play, but it came too late to unnerve U.S. goaltender Sarah Tueting and spoil Tueting’s 21-save performance.

“If we could have done anything else, we would have,” Canadian captain Stacy Wilson said. “The U.S. came up big and they deserved the gold today.”

While the mournful Canadians watched from their blue line, the U.S. players--who were 6-0 in this tournament--piled atop Tueting in a mass of wriggling arms and legs, hugging each other, grinning and draping American flags around their shoulders like capes. Defenseman Angela Ruggiero, who was a 12-year-old middle school student in Simi Valley when women’s hockey was added to the Olympic program, rushed to retrieve the game puck and stash it away for her father, Bill. She then took a flag handed to her from the stands and waved it wildly as she zigzagged in mad circles around the zone the U.S. had defended in the third period.

“My heart was pounding the last few seconds,” said Ruggiero, 18. “I was on the ice and I had to compose myself and settle down.

“I’d visualized this so many times, throwing my gloves in the air and all of it. It’s even better than I thought it would be.”

Said forward A.J. Mleczko, who took two years off from her pre-med studies at Harvard to train for the Olympics: “I couldn’t even imagine what this would be like. I don’t know when I’ll sleep again.”

Why take refuge in dreams when reality is so pleasant?

“To throw your gloves up and jump onto the ice and celebrate, to absolutely let go, that’s a moment I will never, ever forget,” said team captain Cammi Granato, who was the first U.S. player to receive her medal and buried her face in her hands to hide her tears after the bright blue ribbon was slipped over her head. “You don’t want to take this off. It’s the expression of everything you worked for.”

Goyette, who was driven to tears after the teams’ round-robin finale Saturday when a U.S. player allegedly made a derogatory reference to her recently deceased father, on Tuesday led her teammates in a congratulatory handshake line. It was an extraordinary gesture on an extraordinary occasion.

“For me, what happened the other night is in the past and I just want to look forward,” she said. “I just said, ‘Good game.’ It’s [part of] the game. If you won, you deserve to have someone shake your hand.”

Seeing the medal awarded to Granato, a pioneer in the women’s game and its best-known advocate, touched Shannon Miller, Canada’s tough-talking and often abrasive coach.

“I had a feeling of joy because I realized the gold medal was being hung around the neck of a female hockey player, and that had an incredible impact on me,” Miller said, her voice breaking.

The U.S. team’s victory is also likely to have a major impact on players’ lives and on their sport.

“Women’s hockey has kind of grown up in the dark,” Mleczko said. “I hope this will make people aware of it.”

But before they sell their sport, they intend to savor their triumph and the imminent end of the sisterhood they have developed. Many players intend to stop in Hawaii for a much-needed vacation after the Games; Brown-Miller will stop there for the honeymoon she postponed 2 1/2 years ago in order to attend a national team training camp.

“It’s sad to think we only have a few more weeks together and then we go our separate ways,” Ruggiero said. “Right now, though, we just want to cherish this moment and soak it all up.”

She looked at the American flag still draped around her shoulders. “I don’t think I’m going to take it off for a while,” she said. “I’m going to wear this gold medal for a while too.”

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MEDALISTS

Ice Hockey

WOMEN

Gold: United States

silver: Canada

Bronze: Finland