Canadians to cap it with ice hockey win

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – They may not own the podium. But no one’s knocking them off the top step.

Thanks to a surge of victories down the Olympic homestretch, including three on Saturday, Canada is assured of winning the most gold medals at the Vancouver Games.

A quick succession of triumphs – by the men’s pursuit speedskating team, slalom snowboarder Jasey-Jay Anderson and the men’s curling team - gave Canada 13 golds. With only two events left Sunday, no other country could catch up.

And if the Canadians win their hockey showdown with the United States, they’ll go home with more winter gold than any nation ever.

Not bad for a country that just a week ago was waving the white flag in the medals race.

Sure, the United States, guaranteed no worse than a silver in men’s hockey, will win the overall hardware count with at least 37. But Canada has put on a show in the second half of its home Olympics.

If Canada wins the men’s hockey game against the US, it will break the record for most gold medals at a Winter Games - the Soviet Union in 1976 and Norway in 2002 each won 13.

Canada already has broken the host-nation mark of 10 golds shared by the United States in Salt Lake City in 2002 and Norway in Lillehammer in 1994.

It’s also the most gold medals Canada has won at any Olympics – winter or summer. Its previous high was 10 at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, which were boycotted by the Soviet Union and its allies.

The captain of the curling team was elated when told his team had secured the record-tying gold.

“We have 13, fantastic,” Kevin Martin said. “We need to have more Olympic Games in our country, don’t we?”

The surge over the past four days was a remarkable turnaround for Canada, which won no golds at all in the two previous Olympics it hosted - the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary.

And it’s been a huge relief for Canadian Olympic officials, who entered these games predicting that their five-year, $117 million Own The Podium program would enable it to win the most medals overall. (AP)