• Winter Olympics - Day 17

Canada win game of their lives

Canada celebrate their golden goal as the fans go wild © Getty Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• News: Amy Williams to carry British flag
  
• Gallery: Gallery: Canada goes wild; closing ceremony

Click here for the final day in pictures

Canada have defeated Team USA in an incredible 3-2 overtime gold medal victory with the eyes of the Vancouver Winter Olympics host nation and the world watching.

A Hollywood script could not come close to matching the drama at Canada Hockey Place as the visitors came from 2-0 down to equalise with 25 seconds remaining, before Sidney Crosby wrote himself into Canadian and Olympic folklore as the hero of the day with the golden goal just over seven minutes into the extra period.

This comes after a climactic build up of anticipation and expectation among the locals akin to England hosting a football World Cup, while the Americans' group stage triumph set the scene for a finale that lived up to the hype in every way.

Jonathan Toews got Canada off to a great start with a goal midway through the first period before Corey Perry made it 2-0 in the second. Ryan Kesler nicked one back soon afterwards for USA but it looked as though Canada would hold on from there as the clock ticked towards the final minute.

American goalkeeper Ryan Miller was sacrificed for an extra attacker with 90 seconds left and the move, which so often leads to a goal in the empty net, paid off at the ultimate moment as Zach Parise found space by hooking around the net and fired the equaliser from in front.

Each side is reduced to four men plus a goalie in the golden goal extra period, which lasts for 20 minutes before a shootout is required. The sheer pace of the play belied the equally intense hour that had already transpired, and both goalkeepers were called into action a number of times before Crosby found an extra ounce of energy to push into space while the puck was being contested at the wall.

The gamble worked and he received the puck with room to manoeuvre, slotting between Miller's legs to send 32 millions Canadians into ecstasy.

If anyone was around to notice, the final day's only other gold medal was decided into an equally dramatic finish in the men's 50km cross country mass start. The winter equivalent of the marathon was decided by the smallest of margins at the line, Petter Northug going by Axel Teichmann at the line to win an absolute classic.

Northug, Norway's most popular man and flag bearer at the closing ceremony later in the day, won his second gold and fourth medal after drawing on extraordinary energy reserves to sprint home past Germany's Teichmann in the last 100 metres.

That was Teichmann's second silver of these Games, while Sweden's Johan Olsson came in one second behind Northug for bronze - his third medal here.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.