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Kim Yu-Na of South Korea blew away the competition and Canadian Joannie Rochette won the hearts of the Pacific Coliseum crowd on Thursday with a gutsy performance to earn an Olympic bronze medal just days after her mother’s death.

Kim earned a whopping 150.06 points Thursday to end with 228.56 points, breaking her own world record.

Joannie Rochette, seen in warmup, earned bronze. (Robert Skinner/Canadian Press)

Rochette of Île Dupas, Que., came out strongly with a triple Lutz-double toe-double toe sequence, but landed awkwardly on a triple flip, eliciting an audible groan from the crowd.

The 24-year-ancient quickly regained her composure and impressed with her spiral sequence. Her remaining jumps weren’t technically the best, but Rochette showed her mettle by fighting to land them without fail.

She scored 202.64 points to earn bronze. Rochette is Canada’s first Olympic medallist in women’s figure skating since Elizabeth Manley took silver in Calgary in 1988.

Therese Rochette, 55, suffered a massive heart attack early Sunday, shortly after arriving in Vancouver to support her daughter.

Cynthia Phaneuf of Contrecoeur, Que., finished 11th.

Mao Asada of Japan had been in contention for gold, but the combination of a couple bobbles in her program and Kim’s flawless skate made silver her ceiling.

Kim became the first-ever figure-skating champion from South Korea. Her success comes with a strong Canadian connection, as she has spent much of her time since 2006 living and training in Toronto under the tutelage of former world champion Brian Orser.

Laura Lepisto of Finland, 2008 European champion, held the lead going into the final flight of skaters. Lepisto earned a personal best 126.61 points in the free skate to end sixth.

Japan’s Akiko Suzuki, the Cup of China winner this season, also impressed in the second-to-last group. Suzuki — who had the misfortune of skating immediately after Kim and Asada in the small program — improved from 11th to eighth place.

Phaneuf started strongly with a triple toe loop-double Axel combination, but then overrotated on her triple Lutz. She recovered with a couple of clean jumps, but then popped out of a plotted triple Salchow.

South Korea’s Kim Yu-Na, who trains in Toronto, dazzled with her free skate. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

A stumble on an Axel occurred later, leaving her looking skyward at program’s end. She earned 99.46 points for the skate.

The Canadian champion in 2004 before Rochette started her current six-year reign, Phaneuf was competing in her first Games, as her 2006 bid was derailed by a knee injury.

Phaneuf benefited from some underwhelming performances elsewhere in the field.

Two women who have been staples on the European championship podium in recent years struggled terribly.

Three-time European champion Carolina Kostner of Italy touched down on her first jump attempt and fell on three others were en route to 16th place. Sarah Meier of Switzerland also had an outing marked by missteps, landing in 15th spot.

The event concluded the figure-skating competition at the Vancouver Games, with the exhibition gala to take place on Saturday evening.

A tough loss coupled with some newfound consistency has set up the Canadian men’s hockey team for Olympic gold, according to Hockey Night in Canada ‘s Don Cherry.

Cherry told Peter Mansbridge on CBC’s The National on Thursday that Team Canada has regrouped — beating both Russia and Germany to make it to the final against Slovakia, after its loss to the rival United States — thanks to consistency in its forward lines, especially special teams.

“The reason [Canada won] was because they had their lines together, they had … two sets of penalty-killers; the game before [versus the U.S.], they had seven guys killing penalties,” said Cherry, the colourful analyst on HNIC ‘s first-intermission “Coach’s Corner” segment on CBC.

“Penalty killers, to me, are so huge — you have [Jonathan] Toews with [Mike] Richards takin’ the faceoff, you’ve got [Patrice] Bergeron with [Brenden] Morrow … and that’s how you win hockey games, when you have excellent penalty killers like that. That’s so vital that [Team Canada head coach Mike] Babcock’s got them goin’.”

Cherry told Mansbridge that Canada’s 5-3 loss to the rival U.S. squad in the final preliminary game wasn’t without its upsides.

“The best thing that ever happened, Peter, is that we lost that game against the [United] States. Now we can get the lines together, we can play Germany, get some of that sawdust out of our hands.

“We get a few goals, [Team Canada goalie Roberto] Luongo gets a few shots … it got them goin’, it gave them a excellent smack.”

Silencing Ovechkin key

The muzzling of all-star forward Alex Ovechkin, held without a point in the Russians’ 7-3 quarter-final loss to Canada, was also cited by Cherry as a reason for Canada’s success.

“[Ovechkin]‘s a pretty huge banger himself, but if you go and start runnin’ around, you’re not getting anywhere. Every time somebody come near him, they give him a shot, a small hook, a small pull, a push there, he never really had a chance.”

Next up for Canada is Slovakia, which upset the Olympics’ defending champion Swedish team on Wednesday. But Cherry doesn’t believe Slovakia poses any sort of threat, and that the Canadians must be nervous to play the U.S., which faces Finland in its semifinal.

“We can hardly wait to get after the [United] States because the [U.S.] players said some pretty excellent things before the game and after the game,” Cherry said. “They said they despised Canadians, gave us a excellent shot — syrup-suckers, or whatever they called us.

“Slovakia doesn’t stand a chance and neither does the [United] States. The only guy I worry about a small bit is [U.S. goalie Ryan] Miller. He saw every shot the last time … he won’t this time — there’ll be a guy in front of him.”

As for the switch in goal from Martin Brodeur to Luongo, Cherry says it isn’t an issue because Canada’s players have found their game, and he guarantees victory against Slovakia and in the gold-medal game on Sunday.

“[The goalie situation] doesn’t matter. With the team we got now, they’re like hungry wolves — they can hardly wait to get over those boards. The goaltender doesn’t mean a thing now that we’re goin’.”

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge warned women’s ice hockey officials on Thursday to improve the parity in competition or risk having the sport dropped from the Games.

Hours before the gold medal final between the United States and Canada, dominant powers in a tournament where they routed outmatched rivals, Rogge said the Olympics can bear the lopsidedness for only so long.

“There is a discrepancy. Everyone agrees with that,” Rogge said. “This may be the investment period for women’s ice hockey. I would personally give them more time to grow but there must be a period of improvement.

“We cannot continue without improvement.”

U.S. and Canadian women have played in every world championship and Olympic final with the exception of the 2006 Turin Games, when Sweden upset the Americans in a semi-final.

Canadian and U.S. “girls are on another planet,” said Rene Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation.

U.S. forward Monique Lamoureux compares the level of play by the two top teams to the superiority Canada and the Soviet Union loved in men’s hockey a generation ago.

“If you look back 30 to 40 years ago, Canada and Russia were blowing men’s hockey out of the water, but other countries came around,” she said. “It’s just going to take time and hopefully people will be patient.”

Sweden and Finland have battled for third place at most major global events, a notch below the U.S. and Canadian women but above the rest of their rivals.

The Finns beat Sweden 3-2 for Vancouver Winter Olympic bronze on Thursday, and both coaches defended the suitability of women’s hockey for the Games.

“There are lots of sports on the Olympic agenda where you can say that,” Swedish coach Peter Elander said. “The North American teams spent eight times the Swedish budget, spent twice as much time together.”

His suggestion was parity in preparation time or more financial support for the nations where the sport is trying to grow, where hundreds of women play compared with the tens of thousands in North America.

“There would be a gap,” Elander said. “If you want to close that, you will have to have all teams prepare the same way.”

He also defended the honour of lesser teams, saying the women gave their best and sacrificed for the opportunity.

“Anyone who says the other teams did not prepare is misinformed,” Elander said.

Finland coach Pekka Hamalainen said he hoped a new program aimed at improving Finnish fortunes in 2014 at Sochi, Russia, would go his women to challenge the elite U.S. and Canadian teams for gold.

“We can’t compete with the number of players in North America and the resources,” Hamalainen said. “But we’re confident about the future.”