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GANGNEUNG — These are the games you never forget.

It doesn’t matter who you are and where you play. It doesn’t matter that nobody knows your name or your background. It doesn’t matter that this wasn’t the Team Canada we wanted or you wanted on the ice.

It matters that they lost, to Germany, fricking Germany, who didn’t qualify for the last Olympics, and lost the opportunity to play for gold in hockey, not being defeated. Beating themselves.

It matters that they lost and these players we’ve barely come to know will live with this undisciplined defeat, this game lacking direction and common hockey sense, and they will carry this 4-3 loss around with them, probably for the rest of their lives.

Photo by Brendan Smalowski / AFP / Getty Images

You don’t get over a game like this, when you’ve robbed yourself and stolen your own possibilities. This was their opportunity to be somebodies, this group of mostly 30-year-olds who have played their way out of the NHL or never got there at all. It’s not like they were beaten by the Germans, who had one shot on a goal in the final period, the shot coming on a penalty shot. They showed up dumb at the wrong time. They lacked effort and game plan. And this was their opportunity to step up, the way extras do on Broadway every night.