You really don't even need to explain it any further.
Anytime the two countries meet in a championship final, the matchup brings out the claws in both sides and the final of the 24th Winter Universiade proved to be no exception.
Russia scored two goals in the span of 46 seconds in the third period and held on to defeat Canada 4-2 to claim the gold, and bring to a close the games of the Harbin Winter Universiade.
It was, without question, the most hotly anticipated game of the tournament and - despite the eventual outcome on the Canadian side of the ice - it lived up to the hype and expectation.
Both teams staked their place in the final thanks to an undefeated run in the round robin portion of the tournament with neither team really breaking into a sweat. Canada thrashed their semifinal opponents from Slovakia to the tune of 8-1 while the Russians decimated Kazakhstan with an equally vengeful 7-1 score.
Both semifinal matchups served notice that neither team was to be taken lightly, and that only a victory in the final game would suffice. For the Russians, the victory was the crown jewel in their games leading total of 51 medals in Harbin. But for the Canadians, it was a bitter pill to swallow and proving themeselves to be the second best team in at the Harbin games offered little comfort.
"I thought the game was there for the taking," said Calgary Dino defender Travis Friedley. "I thought when we played the kind of game that we'd been successful playing, we really controlled the play. We started to drift from the plan in the third period, and they're just too good to try and do that against. We really didn't play all that poorly, but it seemed like every time we made a mistake they were able to turn it around and make something of it.
"I thought they outplayed us in the back half of the third period," noted head coach Milan Dragecivic. "We stopped chipping pucks deep and getting their guys turning around in their own end to go get them. We had a lapse of about three minutes in the later part of the period, and that ended up being the difference.
Russia opened the scoring in the first period when Marat Valiullin beat Alberta netminder Aaron Sorochan five-and-a-half minutes into the game. The score stayed that way until the late stages of the period when Sashkatchewan Huskie Steve DaSilva scored right off a faceoff in the Russian end to make it a 1-all game.
Russia - who never trailed at any point in the tournament - got the game's next goal on an odd sequence of events. Sorochan misplayed a seemingly harmless Russian shot and the puck popped out of his glove and back onto the ice. Russian forward Denis Fahrutdinov jammed home the freebie late in the period to give the Russians a 2-1 lead heading into the middle stanza.
"That was an unfortunate one because Zorro (Sorochan) doesn't misplay a shot like that very often," said Canadian captain Ben Kilgour. "But that's what it was like for us tonight. Anytime a break could go for us or against us, it always bounced in their favour. Not to take anything away from the fact they're a very skilled team, but it just seemed like we couldn't catch a break when we needed one."
The Canadians had plenty of opportunities to equalize in the second period as the Russians offered up five powerplay chances. Canada was unable to convert on any of the numerous man-advantage situations, and the team went into the third still trailing by a goal.
The Russians handed the Canadian side their best chance to get back to even in the early part of the final period when forward Vadim Berdnikov took a major and a game misconduct for roughing. Saskatchewan Huskie forward Steve Gillen scored on the ensuing five-minute powerplay, but that was all the offense the Canadians could muster.
"We just couldn't get pucks to the net on the powerplay," said Gillen. "I don't know how many times we'd set it up, get a guy to the front to create a little space for himself and then not get the puck through."
In the end, Canada was only able to convert on one of their seven powerplay chances in the contest - a statline that many in the room say played a large factor in the final outcome.
"I thought we needed to be better when we were a man up," said Dragecivic. "I thought out inabilty to make our powerplay chances count, and our deviations from the gameplan in the third period really hurt us tonight."
The Russians shook off the Gillen marker, retaking the lead with little more than three minutes remaining in the game. A goalmouth scramble in front of Sorochan left Petr Kuokhriakov alone and he tucked it behind the Canadian keeper to make it 3-2. Any last remainging hopes of a Team Canada comeback died less then a minute later when Konstantin Kulikov converted a cross ice feed from linemate Radik Zakiev to make it a 4-2 lead, killing the hopes of repeat gold for Canada in mens' hockey in the process.
"That was an example of the kind of skill we were taking about, and the margin for error on our part being so slight" said Ben Kilgour. "We had to press a little bit because we were running out of time. But we get a guy who tries to walk through the zone trap by himself, gets caught and it turns into a numbers rush the other way. The Russian drove wide, threw it back across to the guy who was driving to the middle. A textbook two-on-one rush and they scored on it."
Canadian netminder Aaron Sorochan stopped 23 of 27 Russian shots in the contest while Russian keeper Emil Galikov faced two fewer shots, but also made 23 saves.
The loss marked the end of the competition at the 24th Winter Universiade in Harbin. Canada's medal total was six as they claimed one gold, four silvers and one bronze over the eleven days of competition.
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