They suggested their defeat proved something they were saying all along.

Lindsey Jacobellis had a gold medal in her grasp, only to fumble it away when she grabbed her snowboard for one last trick and crashed.

She maintained her 'boarder attitude afterward, calling the turn of events "just part of the game."

Nice explanations, unsatisfactory results.

Friday will go down in 2006 Olympic chronicles as an embarrassing day for American women, in radically different sports at far-flung venues.

At least, the hockey players could blame somebody else - Sweden, and goaltender Kim Martin, who beat them 3-2 in a shootout in the semifinals. Jacobellis was personally responsible for settling for a silver medal in snowboardcross, with her apparent celebration move - she said the grab was necessary to "stabilize" herself in the air - resulting in a fall, which would have to be defined as unstable.

One thing about messing up in the Olympics: Somebody else is always willing to take advantage. Sweden is the first team other than America or Canada to play for the gold medal and Switzerland's Tanja Fieden is the first Olympic women's snowboardcross champion.

Great stories, in their home countries. Except they should not have happened.

America dominated the hockey game, only to lose a 2-0 lead and fail on several scoring opportunities - including a power play in overtime - and then look bad in the shootout.

The consolation? The loss may have saved Olympic women's hockey. Amid suggestions the sport will go the way of softball, which is being dropped from the Olympics partly because the U.S. team was so overwhelming in Athens two years ago, the breakup of the American-Canadian hockey axis may do some good.

"Right now, there's four good teams, not necessarily two," said Chanda Gunn, the U.S. goaltender.

After the game, the prevailing theme of the Americans was an offensive approach, with the players reminding everyone they were not the ones always assuming another meeting between them and Canada. Then again, Gunn was talking about preparing for the bronze medal game with Finland - and that was before the Finns and Canada had even taken the ice in the other semifinal game.

As for Jacobellis, a couple of hours away in the mountain resort of Bardonecchia, her strategy was strictly defensive. She's the face of those credit-card commercials with the theme of dealing with pressure, which is not really an issue for her.

Yet no matter what it looked like, she initially insisted she was not trying to be cool by grabbing the board with a big lead after the final jump.

Jacobellis got up after her crash and earned a silver medal. The hockey players will try to recover and win the bronze. Yet those are not the medals they should be taking home.

And while the hockey players may actually have saved themselves some humiliation by not having to face Canada, Jacobellis will have to live with her failure. That's Friday's fallout.

kkragthorpe@sltrib.com