Canada Rips Russia 7-3 to End 50-Year Hex

Hopefully by now everyone's figured out that it's 'Luuuuuuu' not 'Booooo'. (AP Images)

Corey Perry scored twice, Ryan Getzlaf added a goal and two assists and hometown hero Roberto Luongo ("Luuuuuuu...!") stopped 25 of 28 shots (including a nice save on a breakaway by Evgeni Malkin late in the third) Wednesday at Canada Hockey Place to beat Russia 7-3 and advance to the semifinals with a Friday night date with Slovakia.

Team Canada has not beaten Russia at Olympic hockey since 1960 in Squaw Valley. Fifty years is a crazy amount of time to go without a win against any team and judging by the insanely loud crowd on hand at Canada Hockey Place -- a good romping on home ice was well worth the wait.

And speaking of waiting, all of Russia is probably still in shock over coach Slava Bytov's decision to wait until the score was 6-1 in favor of Canada before pulling Evgeni Nabokov. What the hell was he thinking? Was he expecting backup goalie Ilya Bryzgalov to pull a rabbit out of his ass and save the game? After having watched his teammates shit the bed was he supposed to go in and clean up their mess? Fortunately, Bryzgalov took the high road and played with heart. And that's something that he wishes he saw more of.

"I saw a team that wants to win and play smart hockey and another team that didn't play smart hockey and didn't play with passion," said Bryzgalov. "I don't know why. Every one of us has to ask this question of themselves."

Alex Ovechkin was kept to a mere three shots on goal and a plus-minus of –2.

"I know there will be some back home who will crucify us and put tons of dirt on us, but those people don't know anything about hockey," Ovechkin told the Russian media.

The Canadian media and fans likely had equally high expectations for Canada and were probably sitting on pins and needles after Sunday's loss to the U.S.

"I don't think many people believed me after the U.S. game, when I said that we were getting better," Canadian coach Mike Babcock said after the game.

It's fair to say that after what went down Wednesday night, all of Canada believes Babcock's boys have finally become a team.

Game on.
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