Canada captain Sidney Crosby ruled out with injury Old rivals face off with gold medal on line Email Beau or drop him a line on BlueSky Medal table | Live scores and schedule | Results | Briefing NBC, meanwhile, has brought out 1980 men’s hockey legend Mike Eruzione to talk about what it means to play for the USA. He says this is the best US team ever assembled. He also notes “there’s not a TV set in Canada that isn’t tuned to this game,” and that’s probably not an outlandish statement. The United States will be facing a hostile crowd at the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena as they seek their third ever Olympic title in men’s hockey and first since the Miracle on Ice team of 1980. The Americans were greeted with a chorus of lusty boos when they took the ice in their white jerseys for their 20-minute warm-up ahead of today’s gold medal game. It already felt like there were more Canada shirts in the building and along the concourses of the brand-new 14,700-seat arena on Milan’s south-eastern edge. Now it sounds that way too. It is arguably the hottest ticket of the Milano Cortina Olympics and that’s clear from the scenes outside the gates, where hordes of Canadian and American fans in hockey sweaters are pounding beers and roaring through songs and chants in glorious 53F (12C) sunshine. Continue reading...