(ATR) Playing for national pride, but without the Russian flag, the Olympic Athletes from Russia rallied to defeat Germany 4-3 in an overtime classic.
Kirili Kaprizov scored the gold medal-clinching goal on a power play 9:40 into the extra period. Legions of Russian fans adorned in red and blue, who chanted, danced and waved flags throughout the dramatic finale, went wild.
The Olympic Athletes from Russia received their gold medals on the ice and sang the Russian National Anthem as the Olympic anthem was played and the Olympic flag was raised. Earlier Sunday, the IOC Executive Board ruled that the Russian flag would not be permitted at the PyeongChang closing ceremony, despite high expectations to move forward from the systemic doping scandal that has rocked the Olympic world.
"I didn’t know about this decision," said five-time Olympian Pavel Datsyuk. "I only figured it out when they put in the Olympic flag."
"Yes, we understood this was going to be the case and we took it calmly," said OAR head coach Oleg Znarok said. "Russia is in our hearts,"
Znarok said he received a congratulatory phone call from Russian president Vladimir Putin, prime minister Dmitry Medvedev and NOC president Alexander Zhukov.
"It was the most important game of my life," said the OAR coach.
German forward David Wolf said the tenuous situation involving the Russian flag didn’t affect their preparation of gameplan.
"We were aware of it, but we didn’t talk at all about it," Wolf said.
The upstart Germans had their Russian rivals on the ropes and a victory seemed imminent before Nikita Gusev knotted the game at three – his second tally in just under six minutes – with only 55.5 seconds remaining on the clock. The Russian had pulled goatender Ilya Sorokin for an extra skater, despite being shorthanded due to a late tripping penalty.
"We thought we got them – we got the gold," said German captain Marcel Goc. "But they didn’t stop, they kept coming and took advantage of us."
"We were really close to being Olympic champions, but in a little bit of time we will be very happy about this special tournament, " said German defenseman Jonas Mueller, who scored his team’s go ahead goal with 3:16 left in the contest.
It was a tense, compelling battle with both OAR and Germany scoring two each in the latter half of the third period. It appeared as if the Russian victory celebration would begin with just over seven minutes into OT, however German goaltender Danny Aus Den Birken robbed Russian star Ilya Kovalchuk with a miraculous save from on the doorstep to keep Germany’s hopes alive.
Germany has been the talk of the PyeongChang Olympic hockey tournament, the first contested without National Hockey League players since Lillehammer 1994. The surprising Germans shocked two-time defending gold medalist Canada in Friday’s semifinal to advance to its first ever Olympic gold medal game.
The last time Russian players celebrated an ice hockey gold medal was in Albertville 1992 when the Unified Team – a mixture of newly independent states following the collapse of the Soviet Union – defeated Canada 3-1 to win the Olympic tournament.
Written by Brian Pinelli in Gangneung
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