Northeastern Olympic Page

SOCHI – In a thrilling championship game between two bitter rivals, Team Canada rallied to erase a 2-0 deficit to beat Kendall Coyne, Hilary Witt and Team USA, 3-2, in overtime to win the gold medal on Thursday at the Bolshoy Ice Dome.

Coyne, who finished the tournament with two goals and four assists, received a silver medal to bring Northeastern's medal count to four (one silver, three bronze) at the Sochi Olympics. In five games, Coyne tied for the team lead with six points with Hilary Knight, Brianna Decker and Amanda Kessel.

Meghan Duggan gave Team USA a 1-0 lead midway through the second period when she wristed a shot into the top right corner of the net from the left circle. The Americans then doubled the lead early in the third when Knight found Alex Carpenter open at the right post for a tap in on the power play.

Team USA held the 2-0 lead until the 16:34 mark of the third when Canada cut the deficit in half on a shot by Brianne Jenner that deflected off a defender and into the net.

Canada pulled goaltender Shannon Szabados for the final 1:35 in a last-ditch attempt to tie the game. With the net empty, the Americans nearly put the game away when a clearing attempt from the defensive zone trickled down the ice toward the vacant cage.

But as the saying goes, hockey is a game of inches.

Bobbling on edge, the puck struck the left post and stayed out, leaving the door open for the Canadians to tie things up.

And tie things up they did.

Marie Philip-Poulin collected a rebound off a shot from the corner and beat US netminder Jessie Vetter with 55 seconds to play to knot the scoreline at 2-2. Then, on a 5-on-3 power play in sudden-death overtime, Poulin struck again with a blast from the left circle to give Canada the gold and Team USA the silver.

Earlier in the day, a pair of Northeastern women's hockey alumnae, Florence Schelling '12 and Julia Marty '11, helped Switzerland capture its first-ever Olympic medal in women's hockey with a 4-3 win over Sweden in the Bronze Medal Game.

Heading into the final weekend of Olympic competition, Northeastern can still add to its already impressive Sochi résumé. Steve Langton '06, who won a bronze medal in the two-man bobsled, will look to add another medal in the four-man event on Feb. 22-23. The United States men's hockey team, constructed by general manager David Poile '72, also has its eyes set on the podium and will look to avenge the women's team when it battles Canada in the semifinals on Friday at 12 p.m. ET on NBCSN.