A storybook ending to a storybook Games. Sidney Crosby's overtime goal brought the Olympic glory that Canadians had been demanding, but perhaps, up until the clinching moment, never believed would actually come to be. Well, hockey gold - two of them - came, as did a Canadian gold medal haul that beat any country in any Winter Olympics. The men's ice hockey gold signalled a generational shift in the sport, while Canada's performance, surprising even the sunniest optimists, showcased a new, confident Canadian sports culture.
We have no history of this kind of sweeping success. How should we interpret it, how should we react to this hard-earned jackpot? Before the Olympics, Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, asked Canadians for an "uncharacteristic outburst of patriotism and pride" from Canadians. Now, and not by political request, we are bringing expression to those sentiments. Indeed, they poured forth all night, in coast-to-coast celebration.
But we can take a lesson from our successes, too: Canadians want their athletes to get financial support, from the private sector primarily, but also from the taxpaying public, so that these victories can be repeated.
Repeating successes sometimes means looking to a new guard. In men's hockey, look no further than yesterday's goal scorers - 21 -year-old Jonathan Toews, Mr. Crosby, age 22, and 24-year-old Corey Perry. These young stars, joined by other breakout players like 20-year-old Drew Doughty, were the products of national junior teams that won five straight world championships.
More generally, a new kind of collective initiative, exemplified by projects such as B2ten, Own the Podium and an ambitious scientific research program, brought Canada Olympic glory. Unlike other Olympic powerhouses - think the former Soviet bloc - we didn't succeed by doping, or by stripping independence or humanity from our best athletes. We can have both mass participation and elite performance; it is that, in fact, that will make us the sporting nation that we always believed we could be.
In 2007, after baseball's Boston Red Sox won their second World Series in three years after an eighty-six year drought, their fans came up with a saying. The 2004 victory "was for our parents and grandparents." "This one, in 2007," they said, "is for us."
Similarly, Canada's 2002 men's hockey win, 50 years coming, was for our parents and grandparents. This gold in 2010 - and the many other gold medals Canada reaped at Vancouver and Whistler - are for us.
But there's a difference between these stories. For these 2010 medals are not ours alone. They belong to our children and grandchildren.
And with the right kind of private and public commitment, to fund our athletes and to maintain this new culture, future generations will deliver the performances, the stories and the medals, showing that the Vancouver/Whistler Games were a turning point, that they were truly Canada's Games.