You couldn’t have asked for a better end to the Winter Olympics.
Sure, the U.S. hockey team lost its bid Sunday to “steal” a gold medal away from Canada. The Americans came back from a two-goal deficit to send the game into overtime.
But it was a fabulous game to watch — and I don’t even like hockey. And it was nice to see the Canadians win this medal, which seemed so important to them. Especially after the way the entire nation seemed to feel guilty about weather problems, technical glitches and other little obstacles that popped up earlier in the games.
Canada did a great job of a) hosting the Winter Games, and b) covering the games on page one of their newspapers. My hat is off to our gracious neighbors to the north.
I want to start my final round of mini-critiques of Canadian and U.S. pages, however, with the sports front of today’s Washington Post. To me, this was the ultimate picture that summed up the day’s gold-medal hockey game:

The photo is by Yuri Kadobnov of Agence France-Presse. And it’s brilliant.
Le Presse of Montreal played up a similar shot by Gary Hershorn of Reuters and — to my delight — broke out of the regimented format the paper has been using over the past two weeks to allow the photo to run with great size:

Again, this is just brilliant. I like the Post version better — you can see more of the fans screaming for their home team — but this works out nearly as well. Average daily circulation for La Presse is 214,953.
The Montreal Gazette also used a picture by Hershorn, but one that focused on just the team:

The Gazette circulates 151,042 copies daily.
The kid who actually scored that goal in overtime to win the game for Canada was Sidney Crosby. He figures prominently, as you would imagine, on many Canadian front pages today.
The Hamilton Spectator – circulation 95,611 — blew out a huge poster treatment for a photo of Crosby reacting to his own shot:

Crosby’s stick is still in mid-air. His glove is flying off to the left. It’s a wonderful shot by Paul Chiasson of the Canadian Press.
Not nearly as effective was this Reuters photo used by the Province of Vancouver, circulation 165,838:

It’s not bad. But not nearly as effective as the two or three covers I’ve shown you already.We’re losing the fans and the environment, but we are seeing a lot of emotion on Crosby’s face. And the picture is relatively well-cropped for this page format.
I do like the Epic headline, though.
I was very disappointed in today’s National Post of Toronto, however. While the photo above worked well in that page format, this one does not:

That’s just an awkward crop. The photo is by Alex Livesey of Getty Images. The National Post circulates 197,034 copies daily.
This next photo — by Getty’s Yuri Kadobnov — was taken just moments after those last few and show the beginning of that mob scene with which we started today:

This is a great shot, and one that will be remembered for a long, long time. Which justifies the poster treatment by the Calgary Herald, circulation 121,800.
I hate to mention this after I wrongfully accused Lewiston, Maine, of this the other day, but I looks as if Calgary might have darkened the lighter parts within the window behind Crosby. Note how light the areas are in the same Kadobnov photo in today’s Windsor Star, circulation 68,147:

Here they are, side by side. Note the white reflections in the Star over Crosby’s head and left arm and the little white card over his right fist, as well as the absence of his jersey number reflected in the glass:

I don’t think it’s a good idea at all to photoshop a news photo, shot on cycle and run on the front page. If, indeed, that’s what’s happened here.
The Citizen of Ottawa ran a photo of that same moment, but from a less effective angle:

The problem here is something I’ve written about before, at length: If you’re going to show us celebration photos, then please let us see the emotion on the faces. I can see Crosby’s face and part of the face of the guy at right. But I can’t see Neidermayer’s face at all. Meaning, of the three people here, I can see only 1.5 faces. Not a good average.
A fine enough photo by Harry How of Getty. But just not front-page worthy. The Citizen circulates 128,600 copies daily.
Much, much better is this picture by Toronto Star staffer Rick Madonik:

I love the roll call up top of gold medal winners and the secondary picture below of fans celebrating the win. Nice job by Canada’s largest daily paper, circulation 335,680.
After the team received its medals, Crosby took a lap around the rink with a huge national flag. The Waterloo Region Record of Kitchener — circulation 57,855 — chose this as its poster front treatment today:

Very nice, clean design and a wonderfully sensitive typographical treatment on the photo. The picture is by John Lok of the Seattle Times.
Le Soleil of Québec ran a similar photo from AFP that had the advantage of showing the Canadian team in the background. King of the Games, the headline says:

This worked out very well. The red stripe across the photo doesn’t really bother me that much — I can still see plenty of fans. And I like the way the flag runs behind the paper’s nameplate.
This one didn’t work out quite so well, however. You can see the players, but their heads are covered up by the flag. And Crosby seems awkwardly cut off at his knees:

The picture is by Andre Forget of QMI. The Niagara Falls Review circulates 12,512 copies daily.
The front page of the Edmonton Journal — circulation 119,909 — worked out a little better:

The page feels a little cramped, however, mostly because of the text running over Crosby’s leg and the cluttered batch of medals in the upper left.
Having the flag protrude into the nameplate doesn’t bother me… which seems odd, given my reaction to the apparent Photoshopping by the Calgary Herald. Is it possible I have a bit of a double standard here? Hmm. Could be.
The picture is by Bruce Bennett of Getty Images.
There’s a good lesson here, on the front of today’s Chronicle Herald of Halifax, circulation 107,485:

The lesson: Keep it simple. Very simple.
Simple can be powerful, especially when you have a great photo — in this case, by Matt Slocum of the Associated Press. You use the picture huge and then get the hell out of its way.
The Sun papers — which have often published fronts over the past two weeks that were way too cluttered — road that simplicity thing with great effect today. Here is the largest of the tabs — the Toronto Sun, circulation 166,123:

Nice and clean. And very strong. The photo — very nice, I might add — is by Andre Forget.
From left are the Suns of Ottawa (circulation 39,233), Winnipeg (32,404) and Calgary (49,633).

La Tribune of Sherbrooke sampled a portion of a large hockey team photo for today’s A1. Which, as you can see, resulted in a relatively weak composition:

The picture was by Jonathan Hayward of the Canadian Press. La Tribune circulates 33,280 copies daily.
Note how the upper part of this cover image seems much more structured than did Sherbrooke’s. An artist pulled out four hockey players, pushed other parts of the photo back and inserted the paper’s nameplate and a headline:

It makes for a better cover image. But again — man, that’s a lot of Photoshop work. Wouldn’t it have been better to show readers an unaltered view of what happened Sunday? We’ve seen plenty of other examples.
The original photo was from Reuters. Le Journal de Montreal circulates 225,427 copies.
The Daily News of Nanaimo — by far the smallest paper I’ll show you today with a circulation 6,868 — ran a nice team photo across the top of the page and then added medal shots of all the other Canadian gold-medal winners:

Now, that’s a keeper. Nice job, Nanaimo.
The Sudbury Star — circulation 15,253 — simply ran a team photo across the top of its page, above the nameplate:

The picture was by Daniel Mallard of QMI. The treatment allowed the Star to run, downpage, a photo of fans watching the game at a local pub.
The Prince George Citizen — circulation 14,456 — also focused on fans watching the game on the huge screens at a local sports arena:

The picture is by staffer David Mah. This page is pretty solid above the fold but awfull gray below it.
And I’ve picked on the Winnipeg Free Press an awful lot this week, so I’m tempted to not dwell its page today. Other than to say: Still too scattered; still too much going on.

The photo of fans in Vancouver is by Scott Gardner of the Canadian Press. The Free Press circulates 127,065 copies daily.
Only two Canadian papers posting their fronts today at the Newseum led their front pages with pictures of the closing ceremonies. One was the Globe and Mail of Toronto, circulation 332,764:

I imagine the justification was that they blew out hockey in their daily special section. Unfortunately, I don’t have any special section pages for you today: The Globe and Mail’s free access to PDF pages expired with the new month.
The photo was by Kevork Djansezian of Getty Images.
And the Olympics’ hometown paper — the Vancouver Sun — went out with a bang: A wonderful exterior shot of fireworks over BC Place Stadium during the closing ceremonies:

The picture was by Todd Korol of Reuters. The Sun circulates 176,690 copies daily.
A lot of U.S. papers put the Olympics out on A1 today — really, many more than I had expected, given all the news in Chile. Therefore, I’ll show you only the very, very best or most notable Olympic fronts from below the 49th parallel.
Sidney Crosby — the kid who scored the winning goal for Canada — actually plays pro hockey for the Pittsburgh Penguins. So, as you’d imagine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette — circulation 184,234 — played a nice celebration shot of Crosby with two staff-written stories:

The picture is by Paul Chaisson of the Associated Press.
The Star-Telegram of Fort Worth, Texas went with a nice mass celebration shot from the AP’s Chris O’Meara that would have topped many of the photos on the front of Canadian papers today:

Average daily circulation for the Star Telegram is 167,364.
The Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., chose to focus on dejected Americans, picking their way through the equipment Team Canada dropped to celebrate:

Not only was the headline nice, I also liked the triple-deck treatment beneath the photo. The picture is from the Associated Press.
The Ledger Independent of Maysville, Ky., used a great AP photo of U.S. goalie Ryan Miller after he gave up the winning goal:

That’s a fabulous special treatment by the 8,692 daily.
The News of Buffalo, N.Y. — circulation 165,511 — focused on the “Miracle on Ice” theme for this great headline:

The picture was from Getty Images.
And many, many U.S. papers put the closing ceremonies out front today. One of the biggest and boldest treatments was this one by the Seattle Times, which has done fabulous work throughout the Winter Games:

The picture is by staffer Mike Siegel. The Times circulates 263,588 copies daily.
Nearly as nice was this one afront the Record of Stockton, Calif., circulation 57,486:

The picture was by George Bridges of McClatchy-Tribune.
As the closing ceremonies unfolded, the visual spectacle grew even larger. The Denver Post — circulation 340,949 — went with this nice visual by Robyn Beck of Agence France-Presse:

In particular, I like the headline. However, I think it’s a bit of a disconnect to put a head containing a pun about medals with a photo of the closing ceremonies. That might have worked better with a photo of an athlete.
I was fascinated by the large table-hockey cutout figures used by dancers in the closing ceremonies. I’m so glad the Fresno Bee — circulation 126,398 — got those out front today:

The picture is by McClatchy-Tribune.
The Austin American-Statesman — circulation 140,602 — went Fresno one better and built its front page around photos of the giant inflatable beavers that appeared later in the ceremonies:

Giant Inflatable Beavers. That would make a great name for a rock and roll band, wouldn’t it?
The photo was by Robert Gauthier of the Los Angeles Times.
And the Herald-Tribune of Sarasota, Fla., went even further than Austin to build around giant inflatable moose:

Yes, Sarasota, the hockey game was an exciting finish to the winter games. But the inflatable beavers and moose and appearances by Michael J. Fox and William Shatner were not exciting as much as surreal.
The photo was by Robert Bukaty of the Associated Press. The Herald-Tribune circulates 114,900 copies daily.
Montages rarely work on A1, I’ve found. But the Times-News of Erie, Pa., found a way to not only pull one off, but to pull it off very well:

The secret here was to use a grid and to crop very, very well. Of the 12 pictures shown here, only one would I argue with the crop (middle of the bottom row, and even that might be OK). Nice job, Erie.
Average daily circulation for the Times-News is 55,397.
And, of course, today is the final day of special sections by the Seattle Times. Thanks so much to Jon Fisch and Rich Boudet for sending them every day.
The final front focused on the hockey final, of course. Jon tells us the..
…final cover was designed by Rick Lund with a nice, up close and personal photo by John Lok.
Click any of these for a larger view:

He also treated us with a couple of inside pages:

Jon continues:
Rick Lund designed two photo pages looking back at the games and highlighting some of the wonderful photos by John Lok, Steve Ringman and Mike Siegel.

The back page recapped all the Times‘ special section covers including this one:

And that’s it for our daily critique of Winter Olympics pages.
I hadn’t really intended to write anything this elaborate every day, but the e-mails and comments these posts gathered suggested that we were indeed finding plenty of teachable moments here.
Plus, I hardly ever show Canadian papers here in the blog. This was a great opportunity to shine the spotlight on our neighbors to the north.
Thanks for all the feedback, folks! Congratulations again, Canada, on a job well-done.
And, as always, thanks to the Newseum for posting all these pages to begin with.