Remembering “The Shot Heard Round the World”

My Canadian readers – do you remember where you were a year ago today???  Can it be just a year ago that Sidney Crosby ended our agony and scored “the golden goal” in overtime to tie a red ribbon around an Olympic Games that was not only entertaining, but turned out to be nothing short of nation-building.  We threw quite a party for the world last year in Vancouver, and in doing so, stirred in ourselves a pride of place that we finally wore on our sleeves, or at least in our waving flag and red mittens.

I remember where I was. I was sitting in my tiny apartment, Team Canada jersey on and my stomach a riot of butterflies.  I threw my lucky hockey hat at the tv when our friends to the south tied the game with so few seconds left, and not longer after found myself uncontrollably weeping with joy and relief when Sid the Kid scored.  My whole apartment building erupted and shook.  Soon I would hear cheering in the streets of Toronto and on the boardwalk.  As a fan of history and sensing this nostalgic day today, I wrote a very brief post here that could not begin to express my deep sense of joy – a sense of pride in this cool country of ours that just overflowed, much like the streets of Vancouver and Toronto.  What a great party!  I think we needed one.

If you want to recall some of the best of the Vancouver Olympics, check out this video from columnist Stephen Brunt and the Olympics theme song that captured a nation for two weeks one winter not so long ago.