Jack’s 2026 team
And this bird you cannot change! No miracles needed.
The United States of America is on top of the hockey world for the first time since 1980, not those maple syrup-sipping, moose-riding, goose-flying, back bacon-eating non-patriots from up North.
If you aren’t a die-hard hockey fan, this is the first time Team USA has won the gold medal in men’s hockey since the beloved Miracle on Ice in 1980 that overthrew the Soviet Union communists in Lake Placid, N.Y.
“You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game,” former Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau tweeted last Friday.
Well, Trudeau, we just took your game … TWICE (via men’s and women’s wins in the gold medal games). Maybe you should’ve become the 51st state after all.
Again, if you aren’t a hockey fan or living under a rock, Team USA’s women’s hockey team also beat Canada in heart-throbbing fashion to win the gold medal in Milan.
Mark my words. This is an all-time USA sports moment, and is one that should be referenced in the same sentence as the 1980 Miracle Team.
However, do not mix my words. I am by no means saying this newly gold men’s team is more iconic than the 1980 team, but there is no doubt it is better talent wise.
I am simply saying this is my generation’s Miracle.
As a 22-, soon to be 23-year-old, my only knowledge of the 1980 team is from the iconic movie Miracle and any clips shown during previous Olympics.
I didn’t know those players and didn’t connect with them as I have with this 2026 team. How could I? I would have if I were alive, I’m sure.
But this ’26 team is my generation’s team. These guys’ names should be on the back of every Team USA fan’s jersey for the next however many decades.
McAvoy will be on the back of mine.
Charlie McAvoy’s underrated stories
The Hughes and Tkachuck brothers, with captain Auston Matthews, have been the men’s team’s poster children since the roster was announced, and rightfully so.
All five of the NHL stars are prolific stick handlers, bruisers, scorers and proud Americans.
However, it is alternate captain Charlie McAvoy who’s been my favorite player to follow.
The hard-hitting defenseman reps the Boston Bruins’ uniform outside of international play (a team I actually don’t like as a Penguins fan) and has served as a staple through all the Bruins’ Stanley Cup-chasing years.
Even though I don’t like McAvoy’s NHL team, that all goes out the window when he dawns the red, white and blue.
I love McAvoy’s one-ice charisma, but it is his off-ice character that really does it for me.
The alternate captain keeps a diary and shared five very moving entries with The Athletic.
McAvoy gave fans an inside and real-time look into the mind of a player chasing a near half-century Olympic dream.
As a fan, that’s awesome. As a writer, that’s really awesome.
McAvoy perfectly captures the humanity of this team and pure patriotism in these diary entries.
I’ll read these pieces again and again while I watch the highlights from this tournament.
They will forever serve as truly inspirational writings for my generation and all those to come.
How I found my love for Team USA hockey
My love for hockey is a funky one. I didn’t grow up playing, though, if I had to go back in time and pick a sport to play again — I’d choose hockey.
When I arrived on Ohio University’s doorstep and began recruiting the best band of degenerates to call brothers, I happened to find myself with a ton of former chiclet-spitting fellas.
I credit my close friends, Alex and Dave, for getting me more into hockey. Our texts during each Team USA game should hang in a freedom-ringing, patriotic Louvre.
They taught me the rules of the game and who are the heroes (the late Johnny Gaudreau) and villains (Connor McDavid, aka McOverrated).
Alex and Dave are Pittsburgh natives and grew up either playing hockey in the rink or in the cul-de-sac on roller blades.
They eat, sleep and breathe this game.
After watching countless Penguins games with them, going out for last year’s 4 Nations tournament games and jokingly coaching them in a collegiate beer league, I became intoxicated by the sport, too.
Soaking up the moment and dreaming of the next one
That’s what makes this moment so special to me. I am a newer hockey fan, but like Alex and Dave, I’ve bled red, white and blue since I was born into this top-dog country.
With the help of some good friends and cold beer, I believed in this team. This team inspired me just like that 1980 team did many of you 46 years ago.
And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.
This is the land of the big dreamers and believers. The land of gold-medal winners who overcome their arch nemesis.
The land of the free and home of those brave enough to topple anything in their path.
NBC’s Mike Tirico said it best during his closing statement after Team USA beat Canada with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” blaring in the background.
“For all the young people out there, not just the hockey, but all the Olympics you’ve watched, those dreams are formed now. Go chase them and go get them,” he said.
“Because our country loves sports, and it brings us together unlike anything else.”
I am proud to be a Team USA fan. I am proud to be an American.
Carl’s 1980 team
I was back in a beer-soaked Ohio University freshman dorm TV lounge, a 19-year-old kid in 1980, watching Team USA take down the mighty Soviets in Lake Placid.
USA 2, Canada 1 in overtime of the gold medal game during the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina 2026 at Santaguilia Arena.
That’s what Sunday did for my 64-year-old bones, finally dipped once again into the eternal hot springs of American ice hockey.
I lasted long enough to see the heroes of my youth become transformed into the heroes of my aging life.
Mike Eruzione became Jack Hughes. Jim Craig was transformed into Connor Hellebuyck. Coach Herb Brooks became Coach Mike Sullivan.
Al Michaels’ legendary “Do you believe in miracles? … YES!!” was replaced by Kenny Albert’s “Jack Hughes wins it! … The golden goal for the United States!”
Believe it or not, as I watched Team USA celebrate on Sunday, a Bible proverb popped into my head.
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun,” says Ecclesiastes 1:9, a book from the Bible widely attributed to King Solomon in his later years.
It means that human life tends to repeat itself. The things we experience — love, war, ambition, jealousy, success, failure — have all happened before and will happen again.
Technology changes. Names change. Faces change. But human nature doesn’t change much.
Solomon’s tone is reflective, even a little weary, something I more clearly understand with each passing day in my own approaching “golden years.”
He’s basically saying:
- Empires rise and fall.
- Trends come and go.
- People always think their generation is unique.
- But fundamentally, it’s the same patterns repeating.
But on that February day in 1980, my friends and I weren’t thinking in biblical terms. Once we learned the USA beat the Soviets, we headed uptown in Athens to buy beer to watch the game when it was broadcast that night on tape delay.
We cheered and shouted each United States goal and booed and cursed each Russian score. Just as you saw in crowded bar room scenes across the country on Sunday, we young men roared like lions in our prime.
We were all our own kings of the jungle.
The lions of winter
With experience comes perspective. At least it should.
I watched interviews before and after the Canadian game Sunday with Eruzione, the captain of the 1980 team, who slammed home the winning goal in a 4-3 win that will forever be the greatest sports upset of my lifetime.
It was like watching a high school football team beat an NFL team. They asked Michaels recently what could top the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980.
“Nothing,” the now 81-year-old Michaels said flatly.
Team USA 2026 had a wonderful moment when its NHL stars beat the Canadian NHL stars.
It cannot touch the miracle we witnessed when a bunch of U.S. college hockey players defeated the best hockey team likely ever assembled. That communist juggernaut won Olympic gold medals in 1956, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976 and yes, 1984.
Eruzione was probably the least physically gifted player on the U.S. team that beat the Soviets. His heart was infinitely bigger than his ability to skate.
Unlike his teammates, Eruzione never played in the NHL. In an HBO documentary about the 1980 Olympics, Eruzione said of his winning goal against the Soviet team: “My friends always like to joke with me [about that goal], ‘Three more inches to the left, you’d be painting bridges.'”
I read social media posts from Jim Craig, the goalie who kept the giant Russian Bear at bay when he was just a kid.
Both Eruzione and Craig, and all of their remaining teammates, have all become reflective with age and experience. Part of that comes from life — and death — experiences.
Their coach, Herb Brooks, died in a car accident in 2003 at the age of 66.
Three of their teammates — Bob Suter (2014), Mark Pavelich (2021) and Mark Wells (2024) — have left this world’s ice for good, their final shifts complete.
Both Eruzione, 71, and Craig, 68, cheered on their younger counterparts during the games in Italy.
But they did it with the wizened eyes of experience, not the wide eyes of their youth. They have become the old bulls in the pasture, counseling the younger bulls on the best path forward.
“Forty-six years ago, we had our shot. They called it a miracle. It wasn’t — it was trust, preparation, and belief. Today, the men and women of USA hockey proved it again. Proud of what USA Hockey was — and what it continues to be,” Craig posted after the gold medal game.
Eruzione attended the 2026 games. After the win, he congratulated both the Team USA men and women for winning gold. (Women’s Olympic hockey didn’t start until 1998).
“What a great Olympic games (for our) men’s and women’s hockey teams. Congratulations to the men and women on achieving the ultimate dream and winning a gold medal. How sweet and how nice it was to be here and to watch both your teams accomplish that,” he said.
Is youth wasted on the young?
That above adage, often attributed to George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde, suggests young people possess vitality, health, and freedom — but lack the wisdom and experience to fully appreciate or utilize them.
I don’t think that is wholly accurate.
In fact, the absolute best way to enjoy moments like we experienced on Sunday is to do it while you are young. Do it before life’s lessons and trials and tribulations take a toll on the mind and body.
Roar like a lion. Roar like a true king of the jungle. Be proud to be an American. We are still here after 250 years. That is the true miracle.
