Final thoughts on the XIX Winter Olympiad:

• Tip of the beret to the gold-medal-winning Canadian men’s hockey team. Last week I speculated that its sleepwalk through the opening round of the tournament could cost the squad in the finals round, but it played with a spirit and passion that is rarely seen in any NHL hockey game. Team Maple Leaf was most deserving of the 5-2 victory over the US team on Sunday, and, as Patriots fans can certainly appreciate, seeing a long-suffering fan base get the opportunity to celebrate such a stirring championship run — especially when at various times it seems as if all hope is lost — is one of the glories of sport, even if it does come at the expense of your own team. The American team has nothing to hang its head about, since Sunday’s loss was its first of the tournament, and the game remained a toss-up until the final minutes. New York Rangers goaltender Mike Richter was spectacular for the US, and single-handedly kept the home team close in the three most spine-tingling contests: Russia I and II, and yesterday’s gallant defeat.

It should be stated, though, that Team Canada certainly benefited from a much weaker semifinal opponent last Friday, as the clock struck 12 for the Cinderella Belarus team in its 7-1 blowout loss to the eventual gold-medal winners. As a result, Canada was able to allow many of its key contributors to sit out and rest up for the title game on Sunday; the US had no such opportunity to relax during its electric 3-2 semifinal victory over Russia on Friday night. Nevertheless, the Canadians seemed to improve on each successive game of the tournament, and both teams provided hockey fans of all levels a tremendous capper to the Olympic hockey competition.

• Added kudos to the Canadian women’s team. It also collected gold at the US’s expense, snatching the title by 3-2 from the perhaps overconfident American team — a squad that had gone unbeaten in 35 games in the exhibition season (including eight straight over Canada) and outscored its opponents 31-1 in the tourney games leading up to Thursday’s final. It was a great story that offered up yet another dose of unbridled jubilation from a grateful nation in support of a heretofore-underdog squad that had been given little chance for Olympic supremacy.

The matching golds for the Canadian teams finally overshadowed the other Olympic news involving Canadians, and those stories — along with the across-the-board success of the German national team, Croatian skier Janica Kostelic, who bagged three skiing golds, the Norwegian cross-country skiers’ prowess, and a record-breaking 34 US medals — were among the highlights of this Olympiad.

• One has to smile just a little that a small helping of "justice" may have been served to two American athletes who reportedly put sportsmanship on the back burner for the sake of Olympic accolades. Speed skater Apolo Ohno was accused in an earlier race-fixing controversy that allowed his friend, Shani Davis, to make the US team at the expense of one of Ohno’s rivals, Tommy O’Hare. There was not enough evidence to prove that Ohno had intentionally lost that qualifying race to Davis, but rumors swirled about his involvement, and Ohno, who had been on track for four gold medals, instead left Salt Lake City with one tainted gold and one silver. And Jean Racine, who stiffed her best friend and bobsled brakewoman, Jen Davidson, just before the Games by picking Gea Johnson as her new sledding partner, saw her medal hopes dashed when Johnson suffered a hamstring injury and the pair ultimately finished fifth. Touché.

• NBC’s coverage of the Games was truly top-notch, as it introduced several new technological gizmos to aid the viewer and didn’t go overboard on the athlete-bio features, as it did with its sepia-toned heartstring-tuggers at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The Peacock’s Olympiad Web site provided the TV audience with an accurate outline of its daily televised coverage, and the events schedule was nicely divided among its cable affiliates, MSNBC and CNBC. Olympics anchor Bob Costas and company offered up seamless transitions and commentary. Long-time ABC Sports commentator Jim McKay, who added folksy anecdotes based upon his bedrock of Olympic Games experiences, was a particularly welcome addition.

While some could fault the figure-skating commentators, Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic, for injecting themselves too much into the Jamie Salé–David Pelletier controversy and perhaps, as so-called neutral observers, even leading the charge to change the scoring, they did provide expert analysis and opinions. The broadcast team’s lack of explanation as to how 16-year-old Sarah Hughes won the women’s gold last Thursday can probably be chalked up to the excitement and hysteria of the moment, and the fact that it was a live broadcast and the network let the visuals speak for themselves. NBC’s hockey-broadcast team of Gary Thorne, John Davidson, and Bill Clement was also on top of its game, remaining both very neutral and insightful in its tournament coverage.

• Finally, security, while very much a behind-the-scenes issue at the Olympic venues, was completely absent from any discussions of the athletic competition and experiences, as it should have been. The fact that the games came off without a hitch — at least as far as Mitt Romney and the organizers’ obligations were concerned — was a testament to the dedication and resourcefulness of the Salt Lake committees and their framework. Despite the soap-opera dramas that too often dominated the Games, the bookend ceremonies to open and close the Winter Games were spectacular, and the majority of the performances in between helped to return the focus to the competition and the athletes.

It is now just 29 months until the flame is re-lit in Athens, where the first drug-enhanced 16-year-old with a bum ankle who fired her coach prior to the games can get inflated pommel-horse scores because the Turkish judge had been drinking at the cocktail party hosted by the organizing committee trying to secure the rights to the 2018 Winter Games for Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Now what’d I do with that remote?

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays on BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com.