Canadian hockey fans erupted on Twitter as their team defeated Russia 5-4 to clinch gold in the 2015 World Junior Championship Monday night, making #CANvsRUS a trending topic worldwide and -- giddy fans speculated -- temporarily slowing down Twitter itself.
Admirers stormed the social media platform to tweet and retweet #CanadaBrokeTwitter after a reported outage on the site, which occurred around the same time. Although Twitter acknowledged the slowdown, site representatives declined to provide further comment when asked whether the delay was connected to the surge in hockey-related tweets.
The Canadian win gives the country its first junior hockey title since 2009, when Canada defeated Sweden. Monday's victory was hard-fought, with numerous close calls as Russia climbed back after Canada nabbed an early 5-1 lead.
But Canada defended its lead in the second half, ultimately beating the Russians by a point. Within hours, the social media monitoring site Topsy had registered over 12,000 tweets with #CANvsRUS.
Even the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, got in on the fun Monday night, tweeting "What a proud moment for Canada! It was great to be in the crowd to cheer on our team to victory."