He hails from Winnipeg and makes a living playing hockey in Chicago, but Jonathan Toews is clearly right at home in Vancouver. In fact, the amount of success the emerging star has had in this city over the past few years is almost uncanny.

He won a world junior gold medal with Team Canada at GM Place in 2006, and later that year he was selected third overall in the National Hockey League entry draft held in that building. Last spring, Toews played a key role in his Blackhawks' winning two of the three games they played here, in a hard-fought playoff series in which they eliminated the Vancouver Canucks.

On February 28, Toews took things to a whole new level, as he and his Canadian teammates edged Team USA 3-2 in overtime to strike Olympic gold. Toews pounced on a first period rebound, opened the scoring, and set the tone for Canada in the biggest game of his life. With a goal and seven assists in seven games, he finished the tournament as this country's leading scorer. He finished with a share of the best plus/minus at the Games (plus nine), was named top forward of the Olympics, and was chosen to the tournament all-star team.

Pretty heady stuff for a kid—and, really, that's all Toews is. He's just 21, and only defenceman Drew Doughty prevented Toews from being the youngest member of a pretty impressive collection of Canadian hockey talent.

“It's unbelievable,” Toews told the throng of media covering the Olympics in the moments after Canada thrilled the nation. “It doesn't get better than this. I can't imagine anything comparing to an experience like this in a long time. This is something that comes once in a lifetime.”

Although Sidney Crosby cemented his place in Canadian history with the golden goal that finished off the Americans, and although captain Scott Niedermayer added yet another piece of hardware to his already impressive collection of NHL and international championships, and Roberto Luongo got the big-game victory that had been missing from his résumé, perhaps none of that would have happened without the remarkable contributions from Toews, This despite the fact that he was considered by many to be Canada's 13th forward when the roster was announced in late December, and some questioned whether his wiry 6-2, 188-pound frame would stand up to the physical rigours of a best-on-best tournament like the Olympics.

But what makes Toews so special is that he is smart beyond his years and has a hockey maturity many simply never develop. He competes hard, is positionally sound, and has a calmness about him that allows him to thrive in big-game situations. There is a sense that when Toews is on the ice, only good things will happen for his hockey team. And it seemed to be that way for Canada throughout the Olympics. Despite his youth, Toews is battle-tested, having twice won world junior titles and a gold at the men's world championship. An Olympic gold was one of the only things he lacked, and he more than did his part to check that off his list.

Toews announced his arrival on the world hockey scene in the semifinal of the 2007 world junior championship with an accomplishment that may never be matched. Amazingly, he scored three times with three different moves in the same shootout (international rules permit the same shooter to try to score again if a shootout is extended beyond three attempts), almost single-handedly lifting Team Canada to the gold-medal game in that tournament.

That takes a ridiculous amount of character, some serious determination, and a pretty good set of hands, and Toews has been blessed with all of that—and then some. Sure, he's got a baby face and may not look physically imposing, but he's got an ability to wear down opponents, win puck battles, and create scoring opportunities.

He got better as the Olympic tournament stakes got higher, and his role increased on an almost game-by-game basis. There were some who felt Canada's 5-3 loss to the Americans in the final showdown of the preliminary round was a blessing because it forced the team into a qualifying-round game against Germany, effectively giving the coaching staff an added opportunity to experiment with line combinations.

And that's when Toews was placed on a unit with Rick Nash and Mike Richards. The rest is the stuff of Canadian legend, as that trio clicked and became Team Canada's most consistent line the rest of the tournament.

“The Americans gave us the opportunity to play another game against the Germans and we were able to sort out a lot of stuff during that game,” Team Canada head coach Mike Babcock said after the gold-medal game. “Toews and Nash with Richards was a dominant line for us. They can play against anybody but also create offence, and they were great [today].”

That's pretty high praise from a coach who knows what it takes to win at the highest levels of hockey. And, clearly, Babcock saw something special in Toews to continue to turn to him in key situations throughout the tournament.

The gold-medal win signalled a changing of the guard in Canadian hockey. Players like Martin Brodeur, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Jarome Iginla—who were all part of Canada's gold-medal win in Salt Lake City in 2002—have likely worn the maple leaf for the last time. They've had their turn and done their parts.

And judging by the results of Canada's youth movement, led by Sidney Crosby and helped quite capably by Toews, this country appears to be in pretty good shape to remain a world hockey power for years to come.

Jeff Paterson is a talk-show host on Vancouver's all-sports radio, Team 1040. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/patersonjeff/.