The USA wins gold for the first time in 91 years at the World Championships, bringing the B’s some gold to go with their black!
Happy Memorial Day, everybody! Hope you’re enjoying it for all it’s worth!
Yesterday, the US played one of their best ever games for the program, in bringing themselves over the Swiss to win their first gold medal at the World Championships since 1933, and
After perhaps a less than auspicious start, Jeremy Swayman seemed to get back into what we hoped he’d be; finishing the tournament at a cool .920 SV%. It’s not the best of the tourney, but hey; not everybody can be a 37 year old Swiss guy who decides he’s actually the greatest goaltender to ever do it for two weeks. Besides, he only really needed to be better than him once to get gold.
Also helps that the USA locked all the way in once the knockout round began; they shed a lot of their bad habits (and critically benched Mason Lohrei, which definitely helped) and played like a team possessed through the quarters and all the way into the Finals; where we got nothing but fantastic games from bell to bell to bell. David Pastrnak put his country on his back in a valiant effort (and led the tournament in points), Elias Lindholm got Bronze in a hard-fought game against Denmark; a team that seemed determined to go as far as humanly possible for their home crowd and shocked Canada in front of everybody, and to top it all off…Team USA remembered that there was someone who’d played a game just like this, on ice far away from home, who couldn’t be there with them on that day.
That day, they made sure he got to join the battle, and join the glory.
Team USA accepting the World Championship trophy with a Johnny Gaudreau jersey in hand.
What a moment. What a genuinely incredible moment ♥️
— Alex (@realsfdynasty.bsky.social) 2025-05-25T21:39:38.526Z
Really gets the dust up in the air, I’ll tell you that.
I think pretty much every IIHF event they put on this year, from Worlds of both men and women, to the U-18 tourneys, to the World Juniors, really highlighted that finally, at long last finally…the gap is closing. There’s clear power squads, but those powers have to work harder than they ever have; you can get shocked by anybody these days. Maybe we’re still quite some distance from say…France ever competing for a medal, but we’re getting somewhere on it. The game is growing slowly, but it is growing, and that’s enough.
Also, Hockey Canada! We’re once again back to jabbing you in the spine for being bad! Denmark? You had all that talent and couldn’t summon more than a goal against Denmark? Did you really want this or have you relapsed back into “we DESERVE this” efforts again? Absolute poverty franchise. No wonder all your best go south of the border; they have to go learn from Americans, Europeans and Russians how to want it enough.
Anyway, what else happened? Oh right, the conference finals. Kind’ve been a bit of a downer.
Florida’s live execution of the Carolina Hurricanes is on at 8pm today. Maybe they get a dead fish bounce, but I don’t think there’s a win there for the Canes. They’ve just had their entire system popped open like a can opener by a bunch of bullies and cheap shot artists…who just also happen to be one of the best coached teams in the NHL, as well as several of the most crushing possession guys in the sport. Real evil stuff there; they don’t even need to do this; they just like it.
On the other side, it appears Stuart Skinner has suddenly realized he’s not going to Dallas for the food and has picked up his game enough that the Oilers have a lead. Personally, I’m not counting the Stars out yet. There’s more goals in that team somewhere; they just gotta catch Skinner in the right way.
Otherwise, what’s on tap? I got a nice shandy for the weather.