The longest game of your life

This is the post where shit goes to shit.

Before we go to the shit though, new medal winners for Canada, which rounds it up to 11 in total.

BRONZE

Tara Whitten, Gillian Carleton, Jasmin Glaesser

Women's Team Pursuit

Derek Drouin

Men's High Jump

GOLD (our first one at these Games!)

Rosie MacLennan

Women's Trampoline

Now to the nitty-gritty of it all.

Yes, we all know what this one is about. USA v.s. Canada.

Although I did not expect a Canadian win for this game, I did hope for a lot of things: 

1. A close scoring game.
2. Besting Hope Solo at least once.
3. No hat trick or double hat trick or whatever from Sydney Leroux, because she's from my hometown and she's Canadian and that would just be sad.
4. An aggressive game.
5. A well-officiated game.
6. Canada playing like they want it.

I got 4/6. I shouldn't be complaining, should I? Now, before I go into this, let me just stress that I am a huge fan of USWNT. I cheer for them most of the time and their players are basically my all time heroes. But because this was the Olympics, and because Canada is the underdog, and because I truly believe that these players can hold their own against the best team in the world, I was definitely rooting for Canada in this particular game. 

I find it funny how a lot of American fans are treating this as somehow personal. Like, the complaints regarding the officiating is going to change how much they respect and support the Canadian team. 2 points made for this:

1. The complaints regarding the officiating are fair. I won't go so far as to say that the ref was bought out or anything, but she made so many shitty calls that shouldn't be seen in something as important as the semi-finals at the Olympics. Anyone who watches soccer knows that those were some fucking strange calls. This includes plays by the US and by Canada that she wrongfully called or missed. The fact that one of these calls determined the end result is what pisses us off.
2. To be frank, Canadians could give two craps about American fans losing respect for the Canadian team. Whatever, you guys not supporting them is not going to change how they play soccer. So at the end of the day, that's not going to affect much. Remember when the US hockey team placed our flag in your locker room and 

I don't understand this whole "the US wanted it more" argument and that's why they got it in the end. 2 points to be made on this:

1. The officiating got the US at least one goal.
2. The US are ranked #1 in the world. Canada is ranked #7. Of course it wasn't going to be easy for Canada. They both wanted it as much as the other. Fuck this one team wanted it more than the other bullshit.

To those saying that Canada should stop feeling sad and being bitchy. 2 points to be made on this:

1. A team has the right to ask for a game review if they feel so strongly about it. Not to say that this review definitely needs to happen, but a team has the right to ask for it. Don't go calling us sore losers, this is the Olympics, it only happens once every 4 years.
2. It's personal, guys. If we want to cry about this, we're gonna cry. We've gone very far from winning nothing at the FIFA World Cup to playing the USA in the semi-finals at the Olympics only one year later. Our captain played a gold-medal game. It's stressful, it's disappointing, and no one can tell anyone how to feel otherwise.

Pictures from the game (pulled from The Globe and Mail, Yahoo Sports, CTV, various tumblr posts):

Desiree "The Destroyer" Scott was incredibly fierce, playing through injury and controlling the ball better than all the American girls she was up against. 

As usual, Tanc was a total badass throughout the whole game. I can understand why some US fans hate her. But every team needs a player like her.

Tanc v.s. LePeilbet:

Tanc v.s. Rapinoe:

Tanc v.s. The Official:

The final goal in extra time:

The after-math. The Canadians owned the field and they refused to leave it. I feel so bad for Sophie Schmidt in these. She fought right to the end, setting up great plays and judging the field very well:

Player reactions:

The newspaper headlines the next day:

122 minutes of soccer and it was definitely the best game I have ever seen. Maybe not on the official's side, but definitely on the players' side. Both teams played amazingly well. It's a shame for Canada yes, but in most of our eyes, it was their gold medal game, and we were all crazy proud of them.

Either way, the game is over. The bronze medal is just around the corner.