From The Sports Network
As of 12:00 a.m. (et)
NEWS
With all events over, the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Games took place Sunday. The event had a decidedly different tone than the opening ceremonies, which took place hours after Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in a training run. It also went off without a hitch, unlike the opening ceremony, when one of four legs of the cauldron didn't come out of the floor as designed. Figure skater Joannie Rochette, who won a bronze medal despite the sudden death of her mother, carried the Canadian flag. Bill Demong, who won the United States' first gold medal ever in a nordic combined event, the 10-kilometer large hill, carried the flag for the Americans. Included in the proceedings was the Olympic flag handover, in which Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, handed the flag to the mayor of Sochi, Russia, where the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will take place.
The United States finished the games with 37 total medals, the most ever won by a single country at the Winter Olympics. Canada finished third in total medal count with 26, but set a record with 14 gold medals, which surpassed the previous record set by Norway in 2002 and the now-defunct Soviet Union in 1976. Germany was second in the medal count with 30.
HOCKEY
Sidney Crosby scored 7:40 into overtime as Canada took home the gold medal with a 3-2 win over the United States in men's hockey. In the extra session, the Canadians were cycling around the left boards. Crosby pushed the puck down to the low left boards for Jarome Iginla, who fed the puck back to Crosby as he was being checked to the ice, and Crosby threw a quick shot on net that got past Ryan Miller for the win. Jonathan Toews and Corey Perry scored a goal each in regulation for Canada, which took home its eighth gold medal in hockey and first since the 2002 Games. Roberto Luongo, who took over as the starting goaltender after Martin Brodeur was lit up by the Americans last Sunday, stopped 34 shots for Canada. Zach Parise and Ryan Kesler each had a goal for the Americans, who were looking for their first gold medal since the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" team. Miller, the MVP of the tournament, stopped 36 shots for the United States, which was on the losing end of the 5-2 final in 2002 against Canada.
CROSS COUNTRY SKIING
Norway's Petter Northug edged Germany's Axel Teichmann in a photo-finish Sunday to win the 50-kilometer race in men's cross-country. The two combatants were side-by-side on the final sprint to the finish, but Northug crossed the line three-tenths of a second before Teichmann. Northug's winning time for the race was two hours, five minutes and 35.5 seconds. It's the second individual medal for Northug at the Vancouver Games. He won bronze in the sprint classic, while capturing gold as a big part of the winning Norwegian squad in the team sprint and also picked up a silver in the 40-km relay. Sweden's Johan Olsson took the bronze, finishing a seventh-tenths of a second behind Teichmann and five-tenths of a second ahead of German Tobias Angerer.
03/01 00:01:55 ET
