If you didn’t know, now you know.
Ice hockey, when played at its highest level by the world’s best players, is magical.
And with no offense intended to the figure skaters, downhill skiers, and bobsledders in the crowd, it’s the competitive straw that stirs the drink at the Winter Olympics.
Never has that been more evident than the last two weeks in Italy, where Jack Hughes ended one of history’s most memorable games with an overtime goal that gave the United States its first gold medal since the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980.
It was 61 minutes, 41 seconds of stick-gripping, mouthpiece-grinding intensity, and precisely what was needed for American fans to exorcise every icy ghost that had appeared since Mike Eruzione and Co. left Lake Placid with gold 46 years ago.
The unsatisfying encores of 1984, 1988 and 1992? Forgotten.
Sidney Crosby’s gut punch of a “golden goal” in 2010? Never happened.
After 16,801 days, the U.S. climbed back to the top step of the medals stand.
But if you thought simply ending a drought that had stretched across parts of six decades and two centuries was enough, the team’s leadership raised the emotional bar by bringing Johnny Gaudreau’s two young children onto the ice for a celebratory team picture.
Zach Werenski held his late teammate’s daughter. Dylan Larkin held his son. And not an attention-paying eye in the building—including Gaudreau’s widow and his parents in the crowd—stayed dry when the No. 13 jersey was skated around the rink.
Sure. Go ahead and say it’s just a game played by millionaires.
“Those championship teams are revered,” said Mike Tirico, who hosted NBC’s game broadcast. “But what you saw today was the build of a generation that was inspired perhaps by the team that lost in 2010, or the team from 2014.
“Today, those dreams were formed for the next generation.”
Analyst Ed Olczyk said he was at the rink the day after the 1980 team’s gold-medal win over Finland, practicing things he’d seen from role models Eruzione, Mark Johnson, and others.
He was on the ice as a 17-year-old when the first post-Miracle team played at the Sarajevo Games four years later, and he was driven to tears as Hughes discussed the “brotherhood” of this American group that had begun practicing together two weeks ago.
Pool-play wins over Latvia, Denmark, and Germany created a buzz among hardcore fans, but it wasn’t until Team USA escaped from a quarterfinal against Sweden—thanks to an OT goal by another Hughes brother, Quinn—that the mainstream began paying close attention.
A semifinal rout of Slovakia on Friday spiked the locker room’s anticipation of another chance to match up with Canada, a fire fueled by the perception that the hockey elite north of the 49th parallel don’t view the U.S. on the same level, rivalry-wise, as other countries.
It was sentiment that literally bled out of Hughes, who’d lost some front teeth thanks to an errant stick from Sam Bennett, when he chatted up his game-winner at 1:41 of the OT.
“Just a ballsy, gutsy win. That’s an American win right there. I can’t even believe this,” he said. “We wanted to go through Canada and beat them.”
Still, while it was Hughes who beat Jordan Binnington to call game, Team USA would have never been in the discussion without Connor Hellebuyck, whose heroics prompted the use of goaltending adjectives rarely needed since Jim Craig ceded the Olympic crease.
He stopped Connor McDavid and Macklin Celebrini on breakaways, made three saves during a breathtaking 5-on-3 disadvantage, and made what analyst and former NHL goalie Brian Boucher called the save of the tournament when the paddle of his goal stick steered away a Devon Toews shot that would have given Canada a lead early in the third.
No Hellebuyck? No overtime. No gold medal. No celebration.
No generational touchpoint for the next U.S. champions.
“They’ve laid a marker down for hockey in America,” Tirico said. “And if Connor Hellebuyck has a fireplace, that’s the picture that’ll be hanging over it for the rest of his life.”