For a while, the U.S. hockey team played like another "Miracle on Ice" in the making.
Then the Americans started playing more like Disney on Ice: just plain Goofy.Thus, the United States and France tied 4-4 Sunday in a strange first-round match of the 17th Winter Olympics in Haakon Hall.
Both teams could feel fortunate to have tied, distressed not to have won.
The U.S., seeded sixth in the 12-team tournament, was supposed to dominate 10th-seeded France.
But after a first period in which France was fortunate to be trailing only 2-1 - the U.S. had a 16-4 shot advantage - the Americans yielded three unanswered goals.
On the weird side:
France's first goal, by Christopher Ville, passed instant-replay review on two counts. (More on that later.)
The U.S. had goals waived off 32 seconds apart in the second period. On the first, Ted Crowley's shot from the blue line hit off Peter Ciavaglia's skate, an intentional act, officials ruled. On the second, Peter Ferraro's second-effort dig at a doorstep rebound wasn't allowed because referee Marko Lepaus, from Finland, ruled goalkeeper Petri Ylonen had frozen the puck.
Weird stuff.
"Most of the goals in the game were quite unusual," said Tim Taylor, the U.S. coach. "Our first goal was a nice goal. I think, after that, all seven were kind of strange."
John Lilley, Ferraro, Peter Laviolette and Brian Rolston scored the U.S. goals. Goalkeeper Mike Dunham stopped 10 shots.
Ville, Franck Pajonkowski, Benjamin Agnel and Pierrick Maia scored for France. Ylonen was spectacular in goal with 28 saves. "When you're up against a very hot goaltender, you have to get a power play goal," Taylor said.
The U.S. not only went 0-for-8 on power plays, but gave up a short-handed goal.
"For the most part, we played the kind of game we wanted to play," Taylor said. "We had lots of pressure on the French end. Unfortunately, we were inefficient on the power play and I think that was our downfall tonight."
A furious rally turned the game into a "moral victory," he said. Laviolette cut the French lead to 4-3 with 8:37 left. His simple flip from the blue line trickled between Ylonen's leg pads, an odd way to cool a hot goalie.
Rolston netted the equalizer with 6:02 left, firing from a near-impossible angle. His shot from just inside the end line appeared to graze Ylonen and carom into the goal off the back post.
"I was throwing it toward the net," Rolston said. "It was more or less to try to get a rebound because we had two guys rushing the net."
The U.S. missed several chances to go ahead, including one power play, then held on as France took power-play target practice for the final 1:56.
"Our goalie played very well and our defensive system worked very well," said Kjell Larsson, the French coach. "After our goalie took two bad goals, it's hard to be in this (tie) situation."
Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton and a host of U.S. Olympic officials, including the president, LeRoy Walker, and the "boss" himself, George Steinbrenner saw the U.S. take the lead 5:04 into the game.
Lilly, in the slot, wristed a shot into the top left side after taking Mark Beaufait's pass from behind the net.
France tied 10 minutes later when Ville faked a shot from the right side and passed to Franck Saunier on the opposite side. Saunier's shot went wide - onto Ville's skate. Dunham, who dove for Saunier's shot, was out of the net when the deflection came, but Chris Imes swatted the puck away near the goal line.
Officials looked at two possible infractions but the goal stood.
Ville did deflect the puck with his skate but, officials determined, did not intentionally redirect the puck.
"We looked at that right away," said Bob Nadin, a Canadian member of the International Ice Hockey Federation's referee committee.
The second question was whether the puck had crossed the line.
"It was just a matter of a fraction of an inch over the goal line," Nadin said. "Both TV sets we looked at appeared to have a little bit of space between the puck and the goal line."
Ferraro's blue-line shot made it 2-1 with 2:17 left in the period.
It was 2-2 after two periods, Pajnowski getting a gift shot when Brett Hauer misplayed the puck near the blue line.
Another defensive lapse led to France's third goal, Arnaud Briand making a steal to assist Agnel with 16:09 left.
Then came the short-handed goal, Serge Poudrier feeding Maia near the left circle.
"I think our young team reflected its youth at crunch time," Taylor said. "Hopefully, we grew a little older in the third period."