Every USA Olympic hockey team, ranked by miracles on ice

17. Nagano Olympics, 1998

1998 was the first year where current NHL players could participate in the games. The NHL put their season on hold so players could represent their country and compete for something shinier than the Stanley Cup.

Team USA pegged Ron Wilson as the head coach and Olympic failure Chris Chelios as the captain. We’ve already gone through how Chelios is bad at Olympic hockey. So I’ll give you one guess to where the Americans finished in 1998.

If you guessed “outside the medal round.” Congratulations. You have the same amount of victories as Team USA in 1998.

Brett Hull led the way for Team USA with three points in four games. In fairness to my favorite scapegoat, Chelios did have two goals in four games. Now, if he’s tied as your leading goalscorer, your team is doing something wrong.

Scoring was an issue for Team USA in 2008. They scored four goals combined against Sweden, Canada, and Czech Republic. They gave up four goals to each of those teams.

The only bright spot for Team USA in 1998 was a 5-2 victory over Belarus. You could consider Canada failing to medal and Russia getting shutout in the gold medal game bright spots for Americans. But that’s only if you’re petty and don’t want Canada and Russia to succeed in Olympic hockey.

Yeah, if you’re American, you consider those two things bright spots.

Team USA would fair far better in the second NHL Olympics. But, kids, we’ll get to that.