All through the Beijing Games, the unchecked swagger of Canada’s women’s hockey team had been conspicuous for all to see — and to admire, fume over and fear.
There were the humiliations of the teams that would play for the bronze medal, the edgy digs at rivals, the nuanced critiques of the failed strategies to score on Ann-Renée Desbiens, the goaltender who made the Canadian crease a fortress.
The Canadians proved Thursday that all of it was justified: They overpowered the United States in the gold medal game, 3-2, and reclaimed the Olympic crown that the Americans had wrested away four years ago.
It was a display of strong-armed, swarming play by Canada, blended with a few doses of luck and an angsty, furious drive that started with an Olympic loss in 2018.
The outcome was one that the Canadians had tiptoed toward predicting. To them, a gold medal was less about redemption and…
