TORINO, Italy — Kelly Stephens had won what so many other women hockey players would be overjoyed to have — an Olympic bronze medal.
The medal was not around her neck yet, the awards ceremony would not come for at least three hours as the gold and silver medal game had not yet been played.
But Stephens, a forward on the U.S. hockey team, was in no doubt of what she had earned. The United States had defeated Finland, 4-0, in the first of Monday's two medal games that wrapped up the women's hockey tournament. Katie King scored two of her three goals in the first period to give the Americans a three-goal lead.
It should have been enough to cause Stephens and her teammates to drench themselves in celebration; her voice should have been strained from yelling.
But Stephens and the 19 other women she came to Torino with in the hopes of competing for the ultimate prize, an Olympic championship, was having mixed emotions about waiting for the upcoming medals presentation.
To get to that moment, she and her teammates were going to have to watch Canada play Sweden for the gold and she was sure that was not going to be an easy thing to do.
"Yeah, it will be hard," Stephens said. "I guess I don't know how I'm going to feel watching two teams battle for the gold medal and wishing we were there.
"To be honest, this was not the situation we imagined coming into the tournament. (Since the loss to Sweden), we kind of had moments where we went in and out of being really upset and angry and sad, a range of emotions, but then we quickly realized that we still had an opportunity to go for a medal and we had to refocus."
"The best part is we stayed together and said let's do this. We have a couple of players that are going to be taking off after this, and we wanted to play for them."
But the bronze was not what she came here for. It was not what anyone expected.
Coming into the Olympics, the only expectation anyone had was that Canada and the U.S. would face off again for another epic battle in women's hockey.
The U.S. won in 1998. Canada won in 2002. They were and still are the best two teams in the tournament, at least in depth and talent. Instead, the U.S. was shocked by Sweden, and the result was two very mediocre medal games instead of one great one.
The U.S. would have needed a very special game to beat Canada, which outscored the opposition 46 to 2.
But at least the U.S. should have been there with them. They weren't, and it was a dull ending after the U.S. beat Finland for the bronze medal and Canada won the gold beating Sweden 4-1.
There was no sign of disappointment from the Canadians about not having played the U.S. team. They won gold and celebrated accordingly. When the game ended, sticks and gloves went into the air and flags came down from the stands.
"It's pretty amazing right now to win the tournament and to have nobody beat us," Danielle Goyette said. "It's pretty emotional. This will be my last Olympics and I just want to enjoy the moment. I wanted to stay there all night. They had to kick me off the ice. I didn't want it to end."
The U.S. women, by contrast, were very quiet in their celebration. The disappointment was obvious, despite what they said.
"It has been a long, hard road," Molly Engstrom said. "A long hard road, and it feels great to pull this one out. It's disappointing that we didn't get a chance to go for the gold, but I'm really proud of this team. We pulled it out.
"You come into this tournament and you can't blow anybody off. We had a great battle with Sweden and it came right down to the last minute, and that's the game of hockey and that's why we play it.
"We were going for the gold, but there's more to it than that. This team pulled together. We're sticking together, and we're proud of ourselves.
"We kind of expected to come in here and get gold or silver but we had to fight for that bronze medal. If we didn't win today, we wouldn't have gotten one. A lot of athletes come to the Olympics and leave without a medal."