It's a great morning for the United States hockey program, as they walked away from their match-up with Canada with a 5-3 victory on Sunday (February 21). Goalie Ryan Miller played an improbably stellar game, and the U.S. now has a bye into the quarterfinal round of the tournament. They'll have to see how the rest of the seeding shakes out, but for now the U.S. is the top seed in an already topsy-turvy Olympic tournament in Vancouver.
It's appropriate that the United States got the win a mere 24 hours before the anniversary of the biggest upset in the history of Olympic hockey. On this day in 1980, the underdog United States team defeated the Soviet Union by a score of 4-3 in the semifinals of the Olympic tournament in Lake Placid, New York. The game was a freestanding metaphor for the height of the Cold War: The Soviet Union team consisted of more experienced, state-sponsored athletes, while the U.S. was made up of mostly college players and true amateurs. The grit and tenacity of the American squad — along with some deft coaching care of hockey legend Herb Brooks — overcame the streamlined efficiency of the Soviets, and the U.S. outlasted them in one of the most stunning upsets in sports history. Two days later, the United States went on to win the gold medal following a win over Finland.
The victory over the Soviet Union became known as the "Miracle on Ice" (after play-by-play announcer Al Michaels jubilantly shouted "Do you believe in miracles?" following the final buzzer at the end of the game). While Sunday night's win over Canada doesn't quite hold the same cultural caché as the win in 1980, it's still a huge upset and could mean big things for the U.S. squad (which hasn't won a medal since 2002 and hasn't scored gold since 1980). Maybe it's time for another run. Maybe it's "Time for Miracles" (thanks, Adam Lambert).