Today in Olympic History: February 23

2014 – CANADA 3, SWEDEN 0
Canada made it back-to-back Olympic gold medals for the first time since 1948 and 1952, completing a dominant run through the tournament by blanking the Swedes.

The Canadians were perfect in Sochi, and they did it with defence – Canada allowed just one goal in three medal round games, blanking the U.S. in the semifinals and Sweden in the final, and just three overall in six games, the best defensive performance in modern Olympic history.

“Right from goaltending all the way out, we didn’t give up a whole lot,” Canadian captain Sidney Crosby told The Canadian Press. “I think just as a group everyone was committed. It would’ve been easy to kind of feel the pressure of not scoring as much and try to force things, and that’s probably when we’d end up in big trouble. We stuck with it and knew what we had to do and knew how we had to win.”

Jonathan Toews opened the scoring for Canada in the gold medal game – just as he did four years earlier in Vancouver – and Crosby added one of his own, albeit in a far less dramatic fashion than his golden goal on home ice in 2010.

It took Canada all of 13 minutes of the first period to get the only offence it would need, with Jeff Carter finding Toews streaking to the net to redirect in the 1-0 goal.

Crosby netted his first of the tournament late in the second period, racing in on a breakaway and tucking the puck around Swedish goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, and Chris Kunitz added a little more insurance midway through the third.

Canada held the high-powered Swedes to 24 shots on goal, and only 13 in the final 40 minutes.

Carey Price completed a record-setting run in the Canadian goal, earning his second shutout of the tournament to finish with a 0.59 goals-against average, the best such mark in Canadian Olympic history.

Canada became the first gold medallist to run the table since the Soviet Union in 1984, and went the entire tournament – more than 362 minutes – without trailing in any game.

“It sounds cliché, but defence wins championships,” said Rick Nash.

OTHER GAMES

1952 – Canada scored twice in the opening two minutes and cruised to an 11-2 win over Norway. Bruce Dickson’s goal 25 seconds in and Tom Pollack’s at 1:59 are the fastest two goals from the start of the game in Canadian Olympic history.

1992 – Canada played its way into the first-ever Olympic gold medal game, but fell 3-1 to the Unified Team. Chris Lindberg scored the lone goal for the Canadians, who ended a 24-year Olympic medal drought with the silver.

1994 – Paul Kariya scored six minutes into overtime to give Canada a 3-2 quarter-final win over the Czech Republic. Brian Savage had the other two Canadian goals.

2010 – Fifteen players found their way onto the score sheet as Canada defeated Germany for the 15th straight time at the Olympics, 8-2. Jarome Iginla, who scored twice, Joe Thornton, Shea Weber, Sidney Crosby, Mike Richards, Scott Niedermeyer and Rick Nash had the Canadian goals.