VANCOUVER — Barely two minutes into the game, Finnish goalie Miikka Kiprusoff was staring at the ceiling in disbelief.
It turns out he was just getting started.
Ryan Malone raced into Finland’s zone, picked off Kipru-soff’s ill-advised pass and scored into an empty net. The U.S. rout was on.
What happened next in this semifinal jolted Canada Hockey Place: The Americans scored four times on Kiprusoff in a six-goal first period Friday, winning 6-1 and surging into the gold medal game. As the clock ran out, U.S. captain Jamie Langenbrunner led the celebration by banging his stick against the boards as his teammates hugged on the bench.
The U.S. will meet Canada on Sunday, 50 years to the day after capturing gold in 1960 at Squaw Valley, Calif. Canada beat Slovakia 3-2 to advance.
“It was a crazy 12 minutes,” said U.S. forward Patrick Kane, who scored twice. “I’ve never been a part of something like that. It seemed like we were scoring every shift.”
It felt even longer to the Finns.
“They got a couple of bounces, it’s 2-0,” Finnish forward Teemu Selanne said. “There are a couple of mistakes, it’s 4-0. And then it’s 6-0, and you’re hoping you can go play curling.”
By the time Kiprusoff left the game 10:08 in, the U.S. had a 4-0 lead on only seven shots. The Calgary Flames goalie had allowed four goals total on 75 shots in three previous games, giving him the top save percentage in the tournament.
Canada 3, Slovakia 2.
Patrick Marleau, Brenden Morrow and Ryan Getzlaf scored in the opening 24 minutes to give Canada a seemingly safe 3-0 lead before Slovakia, an Olympic semifinalist for the first time, created a tense finish with goals from Lubomir Visnovsky and Michal Handzus less than four minutes apart in the third period.
