Cohen is an extremely graceful skater with haunting eyes.  It is hard to glance away from her when she is on the ice.   Her downfall in recent years has been her knack for missing a jump or falling when the pressure is on.

The leader after the short program, Cohen failed to execute the first two jumps of her free skate and had to settle for silver behind surprise winner Shizuka Arakawa of Japan.

“An Olympic medal is a huge accomplishment in itself, but I was definitely disappointed in my skating,” Cohen said.  “It was definitely a disappointment to not come through with an Olympic dream.  But you know, it’s part of life.  It’s a cycle and you have to be able to move on.”

Elsewhere on the Olympic ice, Wayne Gretzky was unable to keep Canada atop the hockey world.  The “Great One” delivered in his role as general manager of Team Canada, which defeated the United States for the Olympic title in 2002, and was back in the same role four years later.

However, with the growing influx of NHL players participating for several different countries, Canada was not the clear-cut favorite most people would believe.

That was made painfully clear during the Olympic tournament, where the Canadians were shut out in three of their last four contests, including a 2-0 loss to Russia in the quarterfinals.

“Yeah, it was kind of disappointing,” said Calgary Flames right wing Jarome Iginla, who netted two goals for Canada.  “We believe we have the best hockey program in the world. ... All the other teams have great goaltending and they have great players.  It comes down to winning those close games.”

“Obviously, it’s disappointing,” said Joe Thornton of the San Jose Sharks, last season’s Hart and Art Ross Trophy winner in the NHL.  “As Canadians, we go there to win every year, and anything but the gold is a disappointment.”

The United States got off on the wrong foot in the tournament with a 3-3 tie against Latvia.  After defeating Kazakhstan, the Americans dropped their next three games but still qualified for the medal round before being ousted by Finland in the quarterfinals.

“We were all disappointed on how it went over there,” St. Louis right wing Bill Guerin said.  “Four years earlier, it was disappointing to get the silver medal because we didn’t get the gold.  In years to come, we’ll look back and cherish that medal.”

With the two North American powers eliminated prior to the semifinals, a pair of Scandinavian nations took center stage to battle for the gold.  Nicklas Lidstrom of the the Detroit Red Wings snapped a third-period tie to give Sweden a 3-2 win over Finland.

“It was great,” said Swedish netminder Henrik Lundqvist, who plays for the New York Rangers.  “To go there and win the Olympics was a lot of fun.  It’s really hard to think about that when you’re playing, but I did a lot of thinking during the summer and really realized how lucky you were to be a part of what happened last year.”

The women’s hockey tournament was supposed to be a two-team event dominated by the U.S. and Canada, who split the first two Olympic gold medals.  However, the Americans were forced to settle for a bronze after a stunning semifinal loss to Sweden.

With their archrivals out of the picture, Canada easily won its second straight gold medal with a 4-1 victory over the Swedes.

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