'They were robbed': Montreal hockey fans heartbroken after second Olympic gold medal loss
Hockey fans were once again left heartbroken Sunday as
Canada’s Olympic men’s team lost the gold medal to the United States
.
The fans packed into Bruno Sport Bar in Montreal’s Little Italy largely fell silent when U.S. player
Jack Hughes scored the winning goal
in three-on-three overtime. Canada’s loss mirrored
Thursday’s defeat for the women’s team
, when the U.S. also took the gold medal game 2-1 in overtime.
Canada’s men “played really well, but they were robbed,” Roman Boswell said following Sunday’s game. An American living in Canada for eight years, Boswell said he had been rooting for a Team Canada victory. “I’m cheering for Canada for the first time and it hurts to see them lose,” he said.
“This is more than a game today,” Joey Cornelli said during the match, asserting that
Canada-U.S. tensions
had only raised the stakes. “This is political,” he said.
“It’s our sport. We don’t want to lose,” Cédric Lamontagne said, but added that for him, “it’s just sport at the end of the day.”
“There’s no doubt” that the game is political, said Xavier Chartrand, who said he would have rather cheered for a Team Quebec. “As a sovereignist, we didn’t lose, we just didn’t win,” he said. “I didn’t want Canada to win. I wanted the United States to lose.”
Fans crammed into the bar early Sunday ahead of the 8:10 a.m. game. The espresso machine was up and running — but so were the taps, as servers kept the coffee, beer and shots flowing.
“It’s a good opportunity to start drinking early on a Sunday morning without feeling too bad,” Peter Johnson said.
“It hurts a bit to have lost twice,” Élodie Piché said as she left the bar. “We wanted to show the United States that we were better.”
“I think we lost a lot of opportunities to score,” she said. “We should have lost … but at least we weren’t beaten too badly.”
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