Nearly 50 Years After the ‘Miracle on Ice,’ Team USA Is Striving for Olympic History

By any objective measure, Columbus Blue Jackets defensemen Zach Werenski has realized his dreams. A Gross Point, Mich., native who played his college hockey at the University of Michigan and is a 10-year veteran of the NHL, Wereski is one of many success stories populating the major American sports scene. In 2021, he signed a six-year, $57.5 million contract extension with the Blue Jackets, which made him one of the highest-paid defensemen in all of pro hockey. What’s more, he got married last summer, and he and his wife, Odette, are expecting their first child in a few months.    Given all that, Werenski has a packed schedule, especially during the NHL season, and has plenty of ways to occupy scant free time. But none of this stopped him from catching the new Netflix documentary Miracle: The Boys of ‘80, which came out in late January, before Werenski flew with his American teammates to represent the United States in the Olympic hockey tournament in Italy. Werenski says he prefers this nonfiction fare to Miracle, the popular 2004 Disney movie based on the same real-life fairy tale of the legendary 1980 American Olympic hockey team that defeated the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, N.Y., en route to an underdog gold medal. Werenski is well aware that no American men’s hockey team has won gold since the “Miracle on Ice” 46 years ago. So he felt a need to further soak up accounts of that storied victory, in order to help America write a new chapter of Olympic hockey history. “It definitely motivated me a little more,” says Werenski. “We’re aware of what’s at stake.” The tournament at the 2026 Games has been the first one in a dozen years to feature NHL players, making it a best-on-best tournament on par with Olympic basketball, or World Cup soccer. With a dominant 6-2 victory over Slovakia in the Olympic semifinal in Milan, the American team has officially clinched a spot on the podium—and a shot at that historic gold. Read more: U.S. Men’s Hockey Cruises to a Gold Medal Showdown With Rival Canada As the American men’s hockey players filed off the ice following their semifinal win on Friday, there was little incentive for them to break down, in any detail, what wound up being a routine victory. No, all minds were already turned to Sunday, when the U.S. will face Canada in an all-North American, border war Olympic final, and a rematch of the 4 Nations Face-Off final from a year ago, when an overtime goal from Canadian star Connor McDavid broke American hearts. The United States had earlier defeated Canada, 3-1, in Montreal, in round robin play.     The matchup that everyone seemed to desire going into this tournament is actually happening. It’ll close up Olympic competition at these Milano Cortina Games, and if past history is any kind of predictor of future events, it could be an epic end to a successful Olympics.     The prospect of winning the first American hockey gold medal on foreign soil—Team USA also finished first at the 1960 Olympics, in Squaw Valley, Calif.—has millionaire pros harkening back to more innocent days. “It’s  going to be a real special moment to just have an opportunity to achieve your childhood dream,” says American Brady Tkachuk, who plays for the Ottawa Senators. “There’s nothing better than that.” Both teams are familiar with each other from last year’s event, and the players also know one another’s tendencies from their NHL experience. The last time these two squads met in the Olympic final was in 2010, in Vancouver, when Canada needed a Sidney Crosby overtime goal to lift the host nation to an unforgettable victory. That game was the most-watched broadcast in Canadian television history. Canada also won the last Olympic tournament to feature best-on-best hockey, in 2014 in Sochi, and—thanks to that McDavid heartbreaker—are the defending 4 Nations Face-Off champs. Expectations are high in a country for which hockey is a national pastime, passion, and obsession rolled into one. Read more: How U.S. Women’s Hockey Took Gold and Glory in Incredible Overtime Win Over Canada The U.S. might do well to just enjoy the moment. “I’m just going to do the same thing that we usually do,” says Tkachuk. “Eat pasta, hang out, just relax. If you overthink it, you’re just going to miss the fun.”  But this isn’t 1980. The United States isn’t sending out a collection of college kids against the Red Army. An American victory wouldn’t shock the universe like it did nearly a half century ago.  It would, however, harken back to a special time, when in one area of endeavor, at least, the country embodied an underdog spirit. The whole country felt it. Can the U.S. capture that again?  We’ll find out soon enough: Sunday, at 2:10 p.m. Milan time. “Chills,” says U.S. forward Dylan Larkin, when asked what he’s feeling while envisioning what could be ahead. “Maybe we wouldn’t even realize the impact it would have. The way this tournament has gone, and how everyone has seemed to want the U.S.-Canada final, hopefully it’s really building some tension. And people are as excited about Sunday as we are.”