By SCOTT CHIUSANO
There are plenty of Winter Olympic sports where the gold medal is determined by a matter of inches. Hockey is usually not one of them. But it was inches that saved the Canadian women’s hockey team in the gold medal match against the United States today, when a puck off the stick of U.S. forward Kelli Stack that easily could have found the back of an empty net nicked the post instead, and stayed there. Maybe it was a sudden breeze inside the Bolshoy Ice Dome, maybe it was the collective sigh of relief the Canadian fans in the arena let out that stopped the puck from careening into the net. Superstitions aside, with two minutes left in the third period and the Canadians still down a goal, that play was certainly a game-changer.