Youthful Russians Beat Canadians

Wayne Gretzky couldn’t stand to watch any longer, heading to the exit in the final minute.

Russia’s youngsters were beating up his hand-picked old pros from Canada and, with 33 seconds left and his eyes red with tears, he bolted. No gold medal for mighty Canada, and no comfort at the Olympics for the Great One, who placed the blame for this failure squarely on himself.

Russia won, 2-0, Wednesday in the Olympic men’s quarterfinals to end another disappointing Winter Games for the country that invented the sport.

“This is special, very special, for our country,” said Alexander Ovechkin, who scored the pivotal first goal early in the third period.

Not for Canada, it wasn’t.

The Canadians arrived in Turin last week amid the distraction of Gretzky’s link to an alleged sports gambling ring and will leave it with doubts about his personnel decisions.

Before the Games, Gretzky said he would be blamed if Canada lost because of the gambling probe. He will too -- but mostly for the decision to send aging legs such as 36-year-old Joe Sakic, 34-year-old Rob Blake and 34-year-old Adam Foote to a tournament that requires the gold medalist to play eight games in 12 days.

“I’ll take all, deservedly so, the responsibility for not winning,” said Gretzky, Team Canada’s executive director. “That’s the position I’m in and the responsibility I have.”

Ask why he left his private box with 33 seconds left, Gretzky said, his eyes red with tears, “I wanted to change our luck.”

For the Russian, the challenge now is to put a big victory behind them and get refocused on Finland on Friday.

“I thought coming in, they were probably the most talented team,” Gretzky said. “The Russian team was better than we were tonight. There’s no excuse about that.”

Said Ovechkin: “Everybody in my country is jumping and drinking lots of vodka.”

Sweden 6, Switzerland 2 -- Mats Sundin of the Toronto Maple Leafs scored twice midway through the second period as Sweden pulled away.

Sweden goaltender Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers stopped 27 shots and had plenty of scoring support.

Martin Gerber, who had a shutout against Canada, started ahead of Colorado Avalanche goalie David Aebischer and made 21 saves for Switzerland.

Sweden plays the Czech Republic in the semifinals.

Czech Republic 3, Slovakia 1 -- The Czechs knocked previously unbeaten Slovakia out of the tournament behind a short-handed goal by Martin Rucinsky and 20 saves by third-string goalie Milan Hnilicka.

Slovakia seemed tense and tight from the moment goalie Peter Budaj slipped while taking the ice for the pregame skate.