Former Badgers play well, Team USA comes up short in Gold Medal loss

For the group of ladies on the 2014 Team USA Women's Hockey team there will be 3 minutes, 26 seconds that they will never get back. Up 2-0 with 3:26 to go in the Gold Medal game at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the United States managed to allow bitter rivals Canada back in to tie the game up. 

It took just over 6 minutes in to overtime before the comeback was complete, as Canada's Marie Philip-Poulin slammed one past former Badger Jessie Vetter on a 5-on-3 power play to give the Canadians the Gold Medal. Of course it would be Philip-Poulin doing in the Americans, you know since she was also the one to score with 54.6 seconds left to tie the game up in the 3rd period. 

For Vetter it was a bitter pair of moments considering her brilliance the rest of the game. Vetter stopped 28 shots in the loss, and was peppered repeatedly over the final five minutes of the 3rd period before giving way to two well placed goals. 

However bitter the moments were for Vetter, for the Badgers on the Team USA roster (Vetter included) there was little shame in how they played in the gold medal game. 

Team USA captain Meghan Duggan, a former Badger who is one of three UW players to top the 100-goal mark, lit the lamp midway through the 2nd period to give the Americans the 1-0 lead. Duggan wristed one from the left face-off circle and it beat the Canadian netminder over her left shoulder and kept rising to the roof of the net. 

Early in the third period it was another Badger who appeared to be cementing her Olympic legacy as Hilary Knight made a pin-point pass to Alex Carpenter right on Canada's backdoor. Carpenter put it home and it was 2-0 Team USA. 

Unfortunately, over the final five minutes the Americans couldn't handle the onslaught of Canada's offense and it led to mistakes being made and too many chances. Eventually something was going to happen, and it did with 3:26 left. 

Going in to overtime Team USA needed to do something different to get momentum back on its side, instead they got caught for two penalties in a row and found themselves on a dangerous 5-on-3 that led to the final goal. 

While it was a bitter ending for four former Badgers, one came away happy as Meaghan Mikkleson gathered her 2nd Olympic gold of her career. 

So, I guess, no matter how you look at it, Thursday was a good day for the Badgers in the Olympics. 

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