How Chemistry, and Whiskey, Helped Team USA Win a Historic Olympic Hockey Gold
They stayed in the Olympic Village, this American men’s Olympic hockey team that won a classic 2-1 overtime thriller against Canada on Sunday afternoon, in a game that—bet on it—will be dissected and feted and reminisced about, quite wistfully, a quarter century from now. Maybe even sooner. The squad swore off the Four Seasons to live like everyday Olympians for a few weeks. The Hughes brothers, Jack and Quinn, and the Tkachuks, Matthew and Brady, each shared rooms with their siblings: Quinn mock-complained about the Tkachuks always leaving their door open across the hall.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]“Olympic spirit, team chemistry, there’s something to that,” says American forward Dylan Larkin, who plays for the Detroit Red Wings. “We’re Team USA, and we get to hang and talk to figure skaters and speed skaters. Winning gold is contagious. And being around winners, being around great athletes, was something that I’m very appreciative we did.”
Read more: Nearly 50 Years After the ‘Miracle on Ice,’ Team USA Is Striving for Olympic History
They honored Johnny Gaudreau, the late Columbus Blue Jackets forward who, as a seven-time All Star, almost certainly would have been on this team, had he and his brother, Matt, a minor league player who starred at Boston College, hadn’t been tragically killed in the summer of 2024; a suspected drunk driver stuck their bikes on the eve of their sister’s wedding. Larkin and Zach Werenski, Gaudreau’s teammate with Columbus, brought Johnny Gaudreau’s children onto the ice after Jack Hughes’ golden goal gave the U.S. its first Olympic gold medal since the Miracle On Ice in 1980.
Werenski and Matthew Tkachuk held up a #13 Gaudreau Team USA jersey during a team victory photo. Canada had 42 shots on goal, to the U.S.’s 28; the dexterity of the best player in the rink, Connor Hellebuyck, in goal—he had 41 saves—and some good fortune allowed the U.S. to escape with a win. “I think part of the puck not going in our net was somehow [Johnny] is standing there doing something,” says Larkin. “Laughing with Matty. Just somehow, they put a spell around our net where that puck didn’t go in. Ironic, because it’s on the defensive side. He would never have been back there.”
And they had Jack Hughes, the New Jersey Devils forward, who had a day. Hughes lost his teeth on the ice from high-stick to the mouth, put the Americans in a dangerous spot at the end of the third period when he got penalized for high-sticking, but then delivered the game–winner a few minutes into overtime. “The difference between a guy that wants the puck on a stick in that moment, if you watch the video, I turn and go back,” says Larkin, who shared the ice with Hughes during the game-winner, and indeed skated away from the action. “He wants it. And he f-cking put it in the net. That’s what superstar players do.”
And for a few hours on a Sunday morning at least, on a February day without the NFL or the NBA All-Star Game or the Daytona 500, this likeable group of American hockey players riveted a nation, and maybe even united the country. “The team was built with personality,” said Team USA coach Mike Sullivan. “We were loaded with personality. There are whiskey drinkers and milk drinkers. We have a lot of whiskey drinkers on this team.” A gap-toothed Jack Hughes, brother Quinn, and American captain Auston Matthews soon joined Sullivan on the press conference stage. They were wearing drinking goggles and sucked down Coronas.
Millions on social media and elsewhere locked in to what was a rare shared cultural experience. Expect NBC to be boasting about its massive audience numbers pronto. The Miracle on Ice, when a crew of U.S. college kids beat the mighty Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War in Lake Placid, N.Y., en route to a gold medal, is so ingrained in American folklore, that both sides of the aisle could get behind the idea of earning the country’s first Olympic hockey gold since that legendary 1980 evening.
President Donald Trump called to congratulate the team after its victory. Political operatives immediately tried to score points. The X account for the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican Jim Jordan, wrote “America: Free speech. Waffle House. GOLD Medal in Hockey. Canada: Bagged milk. Fake bacon. Socialism.”
Such shenanigans are to be expected. The good news: they’re unlikely to win this day. “We know what this meant to the country,” says J.T. Miller, of the New York Rangers. “It’s emotional to put this jersey on. You don’t know if you’ll ever get a crack to do it again. For things to go that way they did today, and how much pride we take in playing with each other … we felt something special.”
As did the rest of us.