I'm sad... and a little angry.

The Canadian Junior hockey team lost the gold medal game of the world championships for the third year in a row. Blowing the lead, for the third time in a row.

But this loss has to be more devastating, because they lost to the Americans. Nothing ticks me off more than that.

They were leading 3-1 after two periods, and then it all came crashing down in the final 20 minutes. The defence died out for the second and third goals for the damn yanks.

But what angered me the most was goal number 4.

"Marc-Andre Fleury, what you did man?"

Number one pick overall in the NHL draft last June.
The Pittsburgh Penguins' prodigal son.
A PROFESSIONAL GOALTENDER FOR PETE'S SAKE!!

Here's the jist of it.
Imagine you're in net with five minutes left in the third period with the game tied at 3, and the puck comes rolling towards you. You look up, and what you see is an American player coming at you at top speed and two of your defencemen behind him.

What do you do?... What do you do???

Common sense would be....

Think about it now....

Take your time.....

That's right! FREEZE THE PUCK!!!
Glove it, jump on it, shove it up your ass, DO SOMETHING! But whatever it is, make the ref blow the whistle and stop the play.

But noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Marc-Andre Fleury decides to put both his hands on his goalie stick, and play the damn puck.
Okay, sure, i might be able to live with that... a little dangerous, but he must know what he's doing, he's a professional afterall!

In a situation like this one, an avid watcher of hockey would assume the goalie would play the puck into the corners or towards the boards.

But noooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Mario Lemieux's final hope decided to fling the frozen piece of galvanized rubber right up the middle!

You think I was shocked? Take a look at the Canadian defenceman.... WHO GOT HIT BY THE PUCK! Causing the damn thing to rebound off him, whizz by Fleury's cat-like reflexes and go straight into the net.

He scored on himself.

Just what was he thinking?

Even Dan Cloutier would have looked at that and said, "what the fuck are you thinking?"

If there is any bright side to this, it tought these teenagers what it's like to lose a big game, and what happens when they panick.

Hopefully when as they grow older, they will make sure that it will never happen to them again.

Because God help us all if we lose to the U.S. in the Olympics of 2010, when these kids will be in their prime.