Team USA’s gold medal dream is still alive, and it’s time to start believing
By Josh Hill
After a slow start, the dream of gold the USA Men’s hockey team is still alive — for now.
It won’t be as magical as the 1980 team, but Team USA needs a miracle to earn gold in South Korea. Things are off to a better start in the medal tournament than to start round-robin play, as Team USA experienced a goal explosion against Slovakia. The 5-1 victory punches the American’s ticket to the next round of the tournament, where the second-seeded Czech Republic buzzsaw awaits.
Nothing about this team instills any sort of confidence, and that’s not going to change at any point in the tournament. Heading into the matchup against Slovakia, Team USA had scored just four goals — which was less than the amount it scored on Tuesday afternoon.
There are two ways to look at that: either the Americans have figured something out at the right time, or Team USA just played its best game. Hopefully, it’s not the latter as the road won’t be getting any easier moving forward. The previous seems likely after what we saw against Slovakia, as a team that had never played together seems to finally be coming together and finding some chemistry.
A matchup with the Czech Republic is going to be a tall order for Team USA to dominate the way it did against Slovakia. The upside is that the Americans played as fast as they have all Olympics long, which counteracted the brutish style of the Slovaks. Against the Czechs, Team USA is going to have to use that speed to create the type of shots they didn’t fully capitalize on Tuesday afternoon.
For now, Team USA can build on what was just the second win of the Olympics and are on to the quarterfinals. This was the easiest game Team USA will play, but all it needs is two more wins for gold — that’s how these tough matchups ahead need to be approached. As lukewarm as the team has played so far, the finish line is in sight and that’s massive.
The American’s margin for error just got extremely slim, but the gold medal dream is not dead yet. If there was ever a time to jump on and start believing in this team, it’s now.