by Lynette Alice

Created on: February 22, 2010

The U.S. men's hockey team win over Canada on Sunday night 2/21/10 in the Winter Olympics was almost immediately minted as a classic. Before the game was even over the commentators were comparing it to the 1980 U.S. men's hockey team "Miracle on Ice" win over the Soviets. As great a win as the game against Canada was on their home ice, does it really match up to the Miracle on Ice?

The game against the Canadians was played as well as anyone could have hoped for and buys the U.S team an important bye as well as a lock on a top two seed in the next round. There is no underestimating how important that will be as the rounds move forward. It was the first time the U.S. men's hockey team defeated Canada in 50 years which is no small accomplishment. Okay, so they didn't actually play Canada every Olympics, but it's still a huge deal.

The U.S did everything right almost - they played it hard line to line, they hit, their passing was as sharp as it's been the entire Olympics, and they played the game out to the last second rather than try to coast. Those are all traits winners need. David Backes and Bobby Ryan played exceptional games as did Ryan Malone - all of whom scored. Ryan Miller was a beast in the net with 14 saves playing an exceptional game against a Canadian offense that threw everything at him. It is hard to find a single fault in the game the U.S played, but still, as good as they were this was no Miracle on Ice. It was an exceptional and exciting game but very different.

The current U.S. roster is a team of professionals, any hockey fan can easily identify every name on the roster - and could do so before the games even started. They faced off against another team that was built the same way using professionals as nearly every nation in the Olympics does these days. that is simply the nature of the modern game, The NHL shuts their season down to accommodate this even. The 1980 U.S. team was a bunch of college kids we got to know as the team was built. Only the most hardcore fans who followed college hockey knew about guys like Mike Eruzione and Jim Craig. They were super collegiate players but they were hardly household names known on multiple continents.

Then one has to look at the circumstances the games were played under. Sure the U.S team took some razzing in Vancouver, and nearly every time a broadcaster outside the event tried to talk about the game once it finished a crowd would gather and belt out Oh Canada so loudly the correspondent would have

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>