VANCOUVER -- Scott Niedermayer saw this moment.

OK, maybe he didn't see everything leading up to it. Like the tying goal by the Americans when his team had one hand on the gold medal. Like the painful intermission when Team Canada had to sit in the mess they'd created for 15 minutes. Like the anxiety and the stress and the pressure of the overtime in the biggest hockey game ever played in this country.

No, all that wasn't part of the picture. But the joy, the euphoria, the flags waving in Vancouver and this wild celebration, he saw all that.

Afterwards, he talked about it with a calmness which seemed strangely out of place but there was no mistaking the power of his message. To do great things, first you have to imagine them and believe they are possible. And once you've done that you can move a country.

"You have to believe it's going to happen," said the Canadian captain who represented the best parts about his team which meant he represented the best parts of this country. "You have to think positive thoughts. Obviously it takes some work but you also have to believe it. I believed this was going to happen.

"It's an experience I'm going to remember and cherish forever. People love hockey here. To give them something back is rewarding for us. It's a great thing we were able to do."

And now it's pressed into our memories; like a keepsake, permanent and beautiful, is pressed into a family bible.

"It's everything," said Mike Richards.

It was every bit of that.

The details of The Maple Leaf's 3-2 overtime win over the USA, of course, will pass into Canadiana but the job of processing it all just minutes after Sidney Crosby had scored the game-winner - and moved beside Paul Henderson and Mario Lemieux in the big goal Hall of Fame - was almost too big.

Oh the players tried. Here's Richards again, trying to capture the moment.

"It's joy, excitement. I'm happy obviously. It was an emotional game, stressful. It's nerve-racking."

And here's the great Jarome Iginla.

"The whole experience was awesome. You don't want it to go into overtime and it was hard at the time but afterwards it feels even better. A gold medal is supposed to be hard. We see everyone else battling (on the Canadian Olympic team). To get to win one at home . . . I'm very proud to be Canadian."

But this picture also needs time to develop. It needs some space before it is fully realized and takes its place in our collective consciousness. There are the details to consider: How Crosby, the heir apparent to Gretzky, scored the game-winner after he'd flummoxed a breakaway late in the third period which would have sealed the deal; how Iginla, the great veteran, fed Crosby, the young superstar, in overtime; how hometown hero Roberto Luongo battled to keep the puck out of his net and if it wasn't vintage Luongo, it was certainly good enough. Every bit of this game has to be savoured. Every bit of it has to be weighed and measured before it is stored.

Again, that takes time and that just leaves us with what was felt in the moment; the incredible energy and emotion that was coursing through Hockey Canada Place. While O Canada was being played, one of the broadcasters on press row started to bawl. Turns out the guy is from Romania, Emil Hossu-Longin and he called the whole game with the Canadian flag sticking out of his headset.

"This is my favourite team," he said. "These have been great Olympics."

And at that moment he was feeling what Niedermayer had pictured when the B.C. boy, who's already won everything there is to win in hockey, closed his eyes and imagined what could be.

"It's pretty fitting that Sid scored it," he said. "I'm sure that goal is going to be replayed and people are going to see it for a long time."

He was asked what the mood was like in the Canadian locker room after Zach Parisse had scored with 25 seconds left in the third period to force overtime.

"We just tried to keep our composure, come out, and push hard again," he said. "We still had the same opportunity. We talked about that. It was still there. Just feel it and believe it will happen. We made it happen."

Turns out they could all see what Niedermayer saw. Turns out they believed, too.