Canada Can’t Penetrate Hasek, Czech Solidarity

They wrapped their arms around each other’s shoulders and stood in front of their bench, a human chain as strong as the will of their goaltender.

While members of the Czech Republic’s Olympic hockey team watched Dominik Hasek stymie Canada in the tiebreaking shootout of their semifinal game Friday, they prayed for a successful outcome. Better yet, they had Hasek in goal.

“We were holding each other because part of the things we said on the bench was we were going to stick together as a team and hold on until the end,” defenseman Jiri Slegr said. “We said before the tournament that if you play together, you can beat a lot of teams.”

Despite having the fewest NHL players of the four semifinalists, the Czechs recorded the most dramatic victory of the tournament. Their 2-1 triumph over Canada at Big Hat arena, which followed their quarterfinal elimination of the U.S. by two days, gave them their first chance at a gold medal as an independent nation, a momentous occasion back home.

“People in Czech are on vacation today,” said Hasek, who thwarted all five shootout attempts to make Robert Reichel’s post-clanging goal hold up for the Czechs (4-1). “You make one mistake, you lose the game. It’s unbelievable pressure, the biggest pressure of my career.”

In the other semifinal, Pavel Bure launched Russia into Sunday’s gold-medal game at Big Hat with the biggest game of his career. The speedy right wing scored five goals to help negate two comebacks by Finland, giving Russia a 7-4 victory and its first berth in the finals.

Russia (5-0), which defeated the Czechs, 2-1, in round-robin play, finished fourth at Lillehammer in 1994, ending a string of medals in nine consecutive Olympic hockey tournaments for the Soviet Union and one as the Unified Team.

“The last three or four years, the Russian hockey federation and Russian hockey, we go down,” defenseman Boris Mironov said. “We have to play real well in this tournament so it will go more up.”

Canada (4-1) and Finland (2-3) will meet in the bronze-medal game Saturday, a particularly bitter comedown for Canada and its celebrated NHL stars.

“Words can’t even describe how bad I feel,” said Wayne Gretzky, who said he might have played in his last major international tournament. “I guess a gold medal wasn’t in the cards for my career.”

Bure scored Russia’s first three goals and the last two, a spectacular display of individual skills regardless of Finland’s faulty defense and the wobbly goaltending of Jarmo Myllys. “Tonight was the night of Pavel Bure,” Russian Coach Vladimir Jurzinov said. “It would take quite a while to figure out Pavel Bure as a phenomenon.”

Bure, who plays for the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, pronounced the game his team’s best. “The goal for all of us was to get to the final,” he said, “and I’m happy with the way the team played.”

Mighty Duck right wing Teemu Selanne had a goal and an assist for Finland, which erased a 3-0 deficit in the second period and a 4-3 deficit in the third. Selanne, the NHL’s scoring leader at the Olympic break and the tournament scoring leader with four goals and 10 points, was hooked, held and cross-checked repeatedly. The assault left him with a bruised knee--team officials wouldn’t say which one--and no desire to speak to reporters.

“It’s part of the game for Teemu and myself,” said teammate Saku Koivu, a Montreal Canadien. “In the NHL, it’s the same thing. They did a good job.”

Forward Jari Kurri, who played for Finland’s fourth-place team at Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980 before starting his distinguished NHL career, said his team’s defense wasn’t good enough Friday.

“We gave them six, seven breakaways. We struggled,” he said. “We made a lot of mental mistakes. We came together and finally got a chance to win a medal. I’m disappointed in the way we finished tonight.”

Czech and Canadian players disliked the way their game was resolved, saying unlimited overtime would have been more equitable instead of the 10-minute sudden-death period and best-of-five shootout.

“I didn’t like it when [Canada] won the world championships with it in 1994 and I don’t like it tonight,” left wing Brendan Shanahan said. “It’s easy for me to say that now that we’ve lost, but I’d stand by it if we won.

“I don’t know if there was a hockey player in the world who wouldn’t have enjoyed that game. The Czechs played great and we played great. We could have played it all night.”

Said Czech defenseman Petr Svoboda: “I wish it could have gone another 10 minutes or so. All of us believed in Dominik, and he came through.”

Patrick Roy was nearly Hasek’s equal. He made 27 saves, to 24 for Hasek. Roy gave up a long goal to Slegr at 9:46, and the Canadians kept pressing until they matched it with 1:03 to play. Eric Lindros corralled the rebound of a shot by Al MacInnis and passed the puck into the slot for Trevor Linden, who lunged toward the net to lift the puck over Hasek’s shoulder.

“They were coming at us at 90 mph,” Martin Rucinsky said. “We said on the bench, ‘We’ve got to finish this and get the job done.’ ”

They held on through overtime, despite losing Svoboda to a hand injury, and team captain Vladimir Ruzicka won the coin toss for the shootout and chose to let Canada go first.

Theoren Fleury led off with a wrist shot that Hasek gloved; Reichel aimed low on the stick side and rang the puck off the post and in. Hasek got a piece of Ray Bourque’s rising shot, which Roy matched when he got his glove on Rucinsky’s backhand attempt.

Hasek forced Joe Nieuwendyk wide to start Round 3, and Roy stopped Pavel Patera. Hasek lost his stick on the fourth Canadian shot, by Lindros, but was saved when Lindros hit the post. Jaromir Jagr, on the Czechs’ turn, hit the post.

Shanahan was up next. “I tried to pump [fake] him and get him down and walk it around him and put it over him,” Shanahan said. Hasek was ready.

“I knew when he was wide that I will come back and make the save,” Hasek said. “I was only afraid the puck would roll and hit me in the arm or somewhere.”

It stayed in his glove, and when Hasek realized the game was over he leaped in the air and threw his equipment onto the ice. Slegr retrieved it later. “I pick it up and I kiss it too,” Slegr said. “I told him I love him.”

Said Rucinsky: “Nobody expected us to be where we are right now. We did it, and it’s amazing.”