Canada barely held on to survive Slovakia 3-2 in Friday's semi-finals in Olympic men's ice hockey, setting up a Super Sunday rematch against the United States for the gold medal, dpa reported.
Patrick Marleau and Brenden Morrow scored in the first period for Canada and Ryan Getzlaf hit late in the second stanza to make it 3-0.
Lubomir Visnovsky pulled back a goal for Slovakia and Michael Handzus cut the deficit to 3-2 with less than five minutes to play in front of an enthusiastic crowd at Canada Hockey Place.
But Canada survived a final Slovak push, with Luongo making a super-save four seconds from the end.
"They got a bit of a lucky goal on the first one and had a bit of momentum. We stayed composed and brought home the win," said Canada goalie Roberto Luongo.
Star forward Sidney Crosby said: "We weren't able to build on the three goal lead. But we scrambled and got some big saves by Luongo."
Canada lost 5-3 against the United States last Sunday in the final round robin game - a day tabbed as "Super Sunday". Now Canada coach Mike Babcock's team is just one victory away from completing their mission of reclaiming their eighth Olympic gold medal, but just their second since 1956.
The United States, which has not lost in Vancouver, cruised past Finland with six goals in the first 13 minutes in a 6-1 victory to reach the final. The Americans will be going for their third gold following titles in 1960 and 1980.
Finland and Slovakia, who beat reigning Olympic champions Sweden and world champion Russia before losing to Canada, will face off on Saturday in the bronze medal match.
"I think anybody in the gold medal you'd be motivated against. But you look at the last game against them, it was really emotional. And it will be great," said Crosby.
Four years after winning gold at Salt Lake City 2002, Canada finished an embarrassing seventh at Turin 2006.
The first seven minutes of the Canada-Slovakia match was one-way traffic heading towards the Slovakia goal. But Slovak goalie Jaroslav Halak did a good job fending the North Americans away.
Canada finally grabbed the lead with 6:30 left in the first period as Marleau tipped home a point shot by Shea Weber. The officials had to consult with video replay to confirm that Marleau did not score with a high stick.
The score was 2-0 just 1:47 later with Morrow deflecting Chris Pronger's point shot past Halak.
The Canadians remained in control of the game and ended all doubts on a power play goal with 3:06 left in the second. Getzlaf collected a rebound and blasted home his third goal of the tournament from his knees.
Slovakia pulled a goal back with 8:25 left on a delayed penalty with Visnovsky's backhand trickling past Luongo.
And it was 3-2 with 4:53 to play with Handzus stuffing home a loose puck in front of Luongo.
The Slovaks gave the Canadian defence all it could handle in the final going but could not beat Luongo a third time.
In the earlier semi, Patrick Kane scored two of six goals by the United States in the first 13 minutes for an easy 6-1 win over Finland, who had allowed only four goals in four games coming into the match.
"It was a crazy 12 minutes. I've never been a part of something like that. It seemed like we were scoring every shift," said Kane.
"The game is over after six minutes," said Finnish forward Teemu Selanne. "It was a long day and very disappointing."
Team USA jumped ahead after two minutes on a horrible mistake by Finnish goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, whose clearance attempt well outside his net went directly to Ryan Malone. And the Tampa Bay Lightning sniper buried it into the empty net for a 1-0 lead.
Zach Parise and Erik Johnson both added power play goals before Kane made it 4-0 at the midway point of the first period.
The net-minder Kiprusoff pulled himself out of the game at that point with Niklas Backstrom replacing him.
But Kane struck two minutes later and Paul Stastny followed just 15 seconds later for a 6-0 advantage with 7:14 left in the first period.
The Americans had done their damage and eased home with little resistance from the Finns. US backstop Ryan Miller was forced to make only 18 saves in the game before handing over to backup Tim Thomas, who gave up a power play goal late in the game to Antti Miettinen.
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