'I thought it was going to turn out different': The agony of what-ifs for Canadian men's hockey team

Chris Jones reports from Milan.

Losing gold in overtime is a special kind of agony, and Canada’s men followed Canada’s women in knowing it, closing these Winter Olympics with bookends of heartbreak.

Both had captains with injured knees. Both had the weight of the country’s hopes on their shoulders and their higher expectations for themselves. Both had their chances to win it.

Both lost 2-1 to the United States. 

It is one of the stranger sums of Olympic math: Hockey’s gold and bronze medallists are always different versions of thrilled. Only the silver medallists go home feeling empty.

For Canada’s men, it’s hard to say who hurt the most after, or for what reasons.

Sidney Crosby, who self-elected not to play when he felt unable to contribute, stood on the ice in his dry uniform, silver in his hair and around his neck, a portrait of late-career resignation.

“Unfortunately, in one game, anything can happen,” he said after. “There were so many opportunities that we could have won that game. But as a team, I don’t think there’s much more we could have done.”

Macklin Celebrini, the 19-year-old who played with a young man’s invincibility, took a long time to lift his forehead off the boards before he walked to the dressing room with swollen eyes, as though he’d never considered that his teenage dreams might not come true.

Drew Doughty, who along with Crosby could have won his third gold medal, fought to keep his lips from trembling when he spoke.

“I thought it was going to turn out different,” he said. “I’m going to still be friends with these guys for the rest of my life. That’s never going to go anywhere. But it would have been nice, you know, seeing them in 20 years with a gold medal to share.”

And consider Connor McDavid, the greatest hockey player on Earth, his gifts coming with the seeming cost of his suffering a series of excruciating second bests. He didn’t speak to reporters after, choosing instead to find a quiet place to wonder what more he must do to win.

A different reckoning was possible for this unbelievable team, in however many ways.

The absence of Crosby will figure first in the stomach-turning catalogue of what ifs. How different might the result have been with him in the lineup? Would Canada have converted its two-man advantage in the second period? Would he have scored his second golden goal in overtime?