Here is a statement: There is no sport that can bring the country together like hockey. This is not 1980. The USA Hockey team was not playing a bunch of men from a hated country that supported everything America hated. This is not 1980. The USA puts professionals on the ice, and so do every other country, including Canada, Russia, Sweden, Finland and Czech Republic who all put more NHL players than non-NHL players on the ice. Yet, yesterday's game was seen by 30 million Americans, which was more than any non-NFL sporting event in 4 years. Why? Hockey still means something, and only because America is not the best at it.
The only other two sports that America cares about to some extent that have an international tournament (Olympic or not) are soccer and basketball (The World Baseball Classic can go beat its head with a maple bat). American's will never be the best at soccer. It can put 10 billion dollars into youth soccer programs every year from now until 2020, and the US will not win the 2022 World Cup. It is not, and will not, happen. America watches the World Cup, and will watch it in large numbers if the US does well, like in 2002, but it will not garner 30 million. The Americans aren't good enough to care. In basketball, it is the opposite, as the USA Basketball Olympic team will be the prohibitive favorite for the next infinite Olympic competitions. If the US loses, it will bring shame and darkness to the collective pride of the country, but will not have a lasting impact, or draw nearly as many eyes to the TV sets. Hockey is the perfect mix of, "we are good enough to win" that soccer lacks, and "we still are underdogs, and the US should never be underdogs" that basketball lacks. Hockey is a perfect sport in many ways, but most of those ways are lost on Americans, such as its incredible physicality, end-to-end flowing action and pressurized moments, but the ability of the sport to captivate and bind a nation is not.
The US loves to be the underdog, because in its mind, it never is and never should be. There are few things that the US is an underdog in, is a pitiable party. The greatest example is 9/11, where scores of countries that usually make fun of, in disallusioned envy, the US's pop-culture, ethnocentric obsession, came to the support of a scarred, fallen nation. Hockey is the other example. For once, America wasn't the bully, wasn't the bad guy, wasn't the favorite. The Canadians were all these things, the simple, docile, friendly Canadians (so friendly, their "own the podium" motto was met with terse laughter, rather than fearful spite) were the team that was so sure of itself, was so cocky. It was 1980 all over again, except with the fact that both teams were being paid millions, and the simple fact it was in Canada. That is also the difference between yesterday's classic and 2002's forgotten Gold-Medal game, where the Canadians waltzed into Salt Lake City, and behind the old guard (Marty Brodeur at his peak in goal, Joe Sakic, Paul Kariya and Mario Liemuiex flying around the ice, Wayne Gretzky GM-ing) and crushed USA 5-2. This was different, it was special. The US had the world behind them, had an entire nation that usually reserves the hieght of ambivalence towards puck, glued to their TV sets. They were the innocent lamb entering the slaughterhouse of Canada Hockey Place. This was all true, even though the US beat Canada on that same ice just seven days earlier, beating them so badly and sending Canada into such a state of abject panic that Canada benched a goaltender that led them to their first Gold Medal in 50 years and is the winningest Goalie in NHL History, for a guy who is .500 in the NHL playoffs for his career. The sides were already dealt, each team knew their place. Canada had the hopes of a nation, the US had the interest of a nation, for once.
The game was hockey played at its highest level. Unlike the first contest seven days earlier, it was evenly played, with both teams fighting for every piece of ice, throwing shot after shot at the two goalies, hitting, skating and passing at high, high levels. What made the game perfect, though, was it mirrored the US's strange perspective as a country in hockey. The US were the underdogs, the team with less talent and ability, and it "showed" as they fell behind 2-0 halfway through. The team that already possessed less talent and 17,000 less fans than the other was behind, the ultimate dog. The USA has rare opportunities to play the ultra-underdog card, but for the first time since 1980 (a game the US trailed in 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2) they had the card in their hand, ready to spring it out. 18,000 Canadians on maple-syrup-highs were chanting "Ca-Na-Da" over and over again (The Canadians are a fearlessly creative people), the building was rocking and the US was dead, David was sprawled on the ground with Goliath standing on its neck. Then a strange thing happened, as the viewers started switching to NBC (the viewership of the game was around 18 millions when the Canadians scored to take a 2-0 lead, and rose to 30 million by the end of the third period), the Americans fought back.
Americans never have to fight back; they are always in a state of being a eternal front-runner. American's never have to scratch and claw their way through adversity, as they emit glitz and glamour in every step they take, but here were 23 white-washed kids that did all of those things Americans never seem to do but always seem to love. They scored a soft lucky goal, as Luongo let a shot trickle by, one that the benched Brodeur never would have let get by him, and the place entered a stunned silence. The Americans were here to upset the day. That goal, and the silence it caused was nothing compared to Zach Parise (a handsome Devil, literally) knocking a rebound (something Luongo seemed to give up on any shot) past the Canuck goalie, tying the game with 24.4 seconds to go. The decibel level dropped a near 100 decebeliters (not sure what the exact term is there). Faintly, chants of U-S-A escaped the chasm of millions of Canadians shocked gasps. The Americans had ruined it all, and nothing makes American's happier. Sure, the Canadians ultimately won, with their Golden Boy scoring the Gold-Medal winning goal, a perfect, seemingly scripted ending to a great game (redeeming Kid Crosby, after he played soulless hockey for most of the game). However, America won, as in the country's collective people and spirit.
It is the underdog mentality that makes sports great, and for a country that is rarely fitting of that bill but seeks it so badly, hockey is a welcome sport. The second the letters "U", "S" and "A" are put into the equation, the sport becomes secondary. The respective ability of the country is all that matters. Since the USA is at best the second best hockey-playing country in the world, the sport immediately means more. America is the ultimate underdog story. It is the country that fought the World's system, fought colonialism and targeted its greatest son, Britain. It was the country that made the first dent in the British Empire, it was the country that showed anything is possible. Ever since the real fall of Europe, the USA has taken its place at the top of the world, seen as the Gold Standard by many (and the country most despised by as many, with the hate being a chemically-religiously-altered form of envy), but every so often there are times when the USA is catapulted back to 1776. Every now and then, the USA becomes the scrappy underdog, fighting the redcoats (which ironically fits with the truly scrappy hardworking players of the USA Hockey team fighting the Canadians brilliantly skating in their red uniforms). It happened in 1980, with the USA Hockey team doing something so magical that it still elicits teary-eyed admiration 30 years later. It happened in 2010, when the USA Hockey team allowed the country to cheer collectively for once.
The USA is in a time of political partisanship that has only been passed by the Civil War times (just to distance the comparison, the Civil War era partinship is about 10000 times more partisasn). Every vote in Washington can accuratel be predicted by just going with the party numbers. It is a fissured country, with two sides going in two opposite directions. And hockey, if only for a couple of days, brought that nation together. The sport that is generally seen as some novelty game played by Canadians and Americans who physically and linguistically resemble Canadians (the American team definitely says "eh" alot), is the sport that can connect, that can rebuild the burnt bridges. Hockey allows the USA to be the underdog, to believe in men whose destiny will most likely be failure, to believe that the country that already slayed Goliath in the form of the British Empire can slay Goliath in the form of a lithe, brawny hockey team. Hockey got its rebirth, its second chance with that game. Many think hockey will take a huge step back into its corner for the next 4 years, until the team travels to Russia and can fight "The Soviets" on their ice, but that might be an assumption too easy to be true. After the 1980 Miracle, hockey became more and more popular for the next 14 years that in 1994, when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, there was a legitimate debate as to what is the country's third favorite sport, and the game was more underground in 1979 than it was in 2009. Hockey has a chance, because it gives Americans a chance... to love their country, one born as the ultimate underdog.
