From wire reports
SOCHI, Russia – Canada defeated the United States 1-0 in an Olympic men’s hockey semifinal Friday to advance to Sunday’s gold-medal game against Sweden. The U.S. will play for the bronze medal Saturday against Finland.
Canada took a 1-0 lead on a second period goal by the Dallas Stars’ Jamie Benn and the U.S. could never break through.
Canada scored what turned out to be the winning goal less than two minutes into the second period on a beautiful give-and-go goal by Benn, who fed Jay Bouwmeester above the left face-off circle, then went toward the net, where Bouwmeester put a perfect pass on his stick. Benn deflected it past U.S. goalie Jonathan Quick, who stood no chance. Benn’s goal was only the eighth in this tournament for Canada’s forwards.
Neither Benn nor Bouwmeester were on the 2010 Canadian team that beat the U.S. in the gold medal game of the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
With the Russian team out of the tournament after a quarterfinals loss to Finland, the Bolshoy Dome was strangely quiet for much of the game, with occasional chants of “U-S-A!” and “Ca-na-da!” lobbed from one corner of the building to the other, and an even more occasional chant of “Shaybu!” (“Score!”) from the apparently neutral Russian contingent.
The U.S. has never won Olympic gold outside its own borders, its two titles coming in the Squaw Valley 1960 Games and the Lake Placid 1980 Games