Shootout’s over, but not the hurt
For the first couple days she didn’t even look at her medal. It was just too painful. Nor could she really enjoy being named one of the two best defencemen in the Olympics, which essentially means she’s one of the top two in the entire world. Not even when others were making a big deal about it.
A week and 10,000 kilometres later, the sting has diminished a bit. But it’s still tough.
“That game is still on my mind over everything,” Laura Fortino says.
That game was, of course, the gold-medal showdown between Canada and the U.S. in Pyeongchang. The one the Americans won 3-2 ending this country’s run of four straight golds.
Losing is one thing. That happens. But for the 27-year-old from Ancaster, the way Canada lost was incredibly painful.
Once 60 minutes of regulation time and 20 minutes of overtime hadn’t settled anything, the game went to a shootout, her first ever in international hockey. Knowing she wasn’t going to be involved and her Olympics were essentially over, a helpless Fortino slid down to the end of the bench and braced herself.
There are always nerves before a big game. No different here. Everyone felt it before stepping onto the ice for the opening faceoff. But, as the shootout loomed, the butterflies had morphed into angry condors.
“It was probably one of the most agonizing, painful moments,” she says. “It’s so hard to put into words how you feel on that bench. You’re just rooting so hard for your teammates. It was very tough to watch.”
So she didn’t. Most of it, anyway. She’d look up and cheer on her teammates when they were shooting. But when the Americans’ turn came, she’d usually look down until she heard the crowd reaction.
“When you’re going into the game, you have control,” Fortino says.
“You can dictate the play. You can dictate how your shifts are going to go and whatnot. In the shootout, it’s just a helpless feeling. You’re just sitting there relying on someone else, relying on your teammates, relying on the goalie. You’ve kind of lost control at that point.”
The agony went on for 12 breakaways. On the 11th, the Americans took the lead. She had raised her head in time to see that one go in.
When her best friend, Meghan Agosta, was stopped a few moments later ending the battle, it was as if a knife had been buried into her soul.
If that sounds hyperbolic or overstated, it isn’t. In women’s hockey, these teams spend four years working toward this one game.
Nearly 1,500 days of preparation is geared toward three hours and two minutes of execution. So when you come up short you’re not losing a game, you’re losing an era.
And losing to the Americans? This rivalry is so heated and so passionate — they nearly had a brawl at the end of their roundrobin game — they don’t even talk when they see each other in the cafeteria in the Athletes’ Village. Any time you lose a big game, it’s awful. When you lose to them, it’s worse.
“I instantly cried,” Fortino says. “I’m looking at (all my
teammates) knowing that we didn’t win and we didn’t achieve what we set out to achieve. It’s heartbreaking, it really is.”
In the days that followed, her team honoured her for being named to the tournament all-star squad. It might’ve been bittersweet but truth is, it was mostly bitter. Yet, as the players spent a little more time in the Village, they were approached by other athletes — mostly Canadian — offering words of encouragement. And clarity.
“They knew how disappointed we were,” Fortino says. “But they said, ‘You have a medal around your neck. Be grateful and be honoured for that because there are tons of athletes here who would love to walk away with a medal, let alone a silver.’”
It didn’t completely heal the wound, but it helped.
By the time she got off the plane back home, the 2014 Golden Horseshoe Athlete of the Year — and right now the 2018 favourite — was wearing her silver medal.
And she had decided she was ready to spend the next 1,500 days doing what she can to hear O Canada play in Beijing.
“I know in my heart,” one of the world’s two best defencemen says, “I have a lot more to give.”
And another gold medal to get.