King on WJHC: Visentin finds redemption in bronze
Posted January 6, 2012 9:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
CALGARY, Alta. — His confidence was rising, but his strength was wavering.
After making a save on a penalty shot Mark Visentin never thought he deserved to face, the Canadian goaltender slapped the puck towards Finnish forward Teemu Pulkkinen. He had just stopped Pulkkinen, who tried beating him five-hole, when he fired the puck towards him in the heat of the moment.
Call it a small, defiant act. Visentin, who’s barely comfortable raising his arms in celebration, called it something else.
“It was kind of a muffin anyways,” Visentin said with a smile, “so I thought it was pretty funny.”
If we’re scoring style points, he very well could have put more on it. It was one of 27 saves Visentin made in a 4-0 shutout win over Finland in the bronze-medal game and about the only area he could point to as needing improvement.
Visentin got the nod in goal after relieving an injured and battered Scott Wedgewood in a 6-5 loss to the Russians in the semifinal. It was another tough loss for Visentin, who couldn’t quite shake the negativity from last year’s gold-medal meltdown.
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A year earlier, Visentin was beat five times in the third period of the World Junior Hockey Championship’s final game, a 5-3 loss to Russia. As much as he would have liked to move on, Visentin didn’t have the luxury of forgetting what transpired in his defining moment.
The goals allowed weren’t all entirely his fault and the team in front of him certainly should share in the blame. But after a sluggish start in the Ontario Hockey League with the Niagara IceDogs, hardly anyone was willing to let him off the hook and let bygones be bygones.
So worried were the Canadian fans, they chanted incumbent Wedgewood’s name after his shutout against the Czech Republic in Canada’s second game of the tournament. Visentin was beat once in their first game, an 8-1 win over Finland, without a peep from the fans in praising their triumphant goaltender.
Whether truly inspired by Wedgewood’s performance or simply fearing the alternative, the fans made it known which goaltender they hoped head coach Don Hay would play the rest of the way.
No one chanted Visentin’s name, but he still earned his time in the spotlight. Appreciative fans showered him with love at the Scotiabank Saddledome after watching a miraculous save where he spun around and gloved the puck off the goal line. The save came in the third period when Canada led 3-0, still a moment in the game where the Finns could have rallied.
“I’ve seen him make a lot of good saves, but that was probably the most creative one,” said Ryan Strome, Visentin’s teammate with Canada and in Niagara. “I didn’t believe it. I had to watch the replay a few times — they showed it about 25 times up there.”
Visentin, too, was looking closely at the images on the scoreboard. However, he wasn’t marveling in the moment, at least not yet, but rather trying to find out if the puck crossed the line. After wildly swinging at it, he feared it could have been an own goal.
“Once I saw the replay on the above view … on the jumboscreen, it looked pretty cool,” he said. “The crowd went nuts. I had a good feeling it didn’t go in.”
Those good feelings would continue after being named Canada’s player of the game. The fans recognized his performance and shared in his excitement.
No one could have seen that type of reaction from a Canadian fan base that would only associate Visentin with the biggest loss in his playing career.
It was redemption of sorts. Visentin was certainly happy to give the fans this moment, where the Canadian team walked off the ice in victory, not defeat. But even he wasn’t taking it too far, pointing out several times, as if unable to fully enjoy the moment, that it came in a game for the bronze medal, and not the gold.
Time and again he spoke to the media as if they were fans, apologizing that his performance came in a bronze-medal game and not the gold. Even in victory, he couldn’t look past defeat, referencing last year’s disappointment, even without prompting.
“It’s been a tough year,” he said. “I know I didn’t do my job last year, but I healed from that. I got over it and I used it to get better. I apologize to everybody here we couldn’t be playing for a gold medal tonight, but we tried our best and I hope we did everybody proud.”
His performance may not have come in the same game so many Canadians haven’t forgotten, but he took the first step towards redefining his image. He did have something to prove, but no critic is harder than the one Visentin sees in the mirror.
“I just tried to prove it to myself,” he said.
“I’m so proud to play for this country. It’s the best country in the world and best fans in the world. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I’m a proud Canadian.”
The point’s proven — to a hockey player and a nation.
