Two points:

1)  The heroism aspect comes in by deciding to ditch in the water, guaranteeing a poor outcome for your aircraft but also guaranteeing a good outcome for innocent bystanders on the ground.  It sounds to me like a landing at an airport or an open field was marginally possible, but highly unlikely, with the chances much higher of taking out a lot of people on the ground.  The decision to not put others in jeopardy by worsening your own chances is where the selflessness (heroism?) comes in.  As for airmanship, I would hope that any airline pilot could touch down on flat water without cartwheeling the airplane.  As for the safe evacuation, well, the cabin crew doing a good job, plus a lot of luck in giving them the time to do so, and the airplane staying afloat long enough that people didn't have to swim in 40 F water, is what saved the day.

2)  As for Dan's comments about "a few minutes either way", well, that's certainly true, but wouldn't there have been a different airliner there at that time?  So the airplanes before and after dodged the geese by being a few minutes away.

It's surprising, actually, that this doesn't happen more often.

- Rob Wolf