BEIJING — This was it: as close as many of them will get to one of hockey’s big championships, and as close as the United States will get to the kind of Olympic hockey story it always wants to tell. The Americans were one minute away from beating Slovakia, 2–1, to move into the semifinal round, and they can all tell you what happened after that, but the why gets murky.
Here is how it unfolded: Slovakia pulled its goalie. Captain Marek Hrivik scored with 43.7 seconds left to tie it. The teams went to overtime, 10 minutes with three skaters each, which felt like sprinting along the edge of a cliff.