ARLINGTON, V.A. — As Washington Capitals coach Spencer Carbery took in the the Canada vs. USA gold medal Olympic showdown on Sunday, his phone lit up with text after text — roughly 85 in total — all saying the same thing.
“What a game.”
A good amount of the messages, too, weren’t from Carbery’s colleagues or hockey heads, but from casual fans and friends of Carbery taking in one of their first-ever games on television.
“It’s just a reminder of when you get on the Olympic stage and our sport is on display, you see that type of competitiveness and that type of how beautiful the game is… it’s such a great game,” Carbery said.
The women’s gold medal game between USA and Canada goes down as the most-watched women’s hockey game ever in the United States, drawing in an average of 5.3 million viewers.
Numbers have yet to be released for the men’s game, but they’re expected to be up there, even despite the 8:10 a.m. puck drop on day where you’re probably not going to set an alarm.
Ryan Leonard said it best: it’s just one of those games that’s easy to wake up for, even if you’re not playing in it.
The Capitals themselves, scheduled to practice at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, did their due diligence, rising early to get to the rink well before things kicked off so they could take in the action.
“I mean, it’s 40 of the best hockey players in the whole world,” Charlie Lindgren, who represented Team USA on the international stage at the 2024 Worlds, pointed out.
Every TV in the facility was tuned to the game. The players came together in the lounge and locker room to watch two of the top nations — bitter rivals until the end — face off against one another while also cheering on teammates Tom Wilson and Logan Thompson, who played for Canada in their first Olympics.
There’s a fair ratio of Americans and Canadians in Washington’s dressing room, but perhaps on one was more nervous than Ontario native Dylan Strome, who was not only cheering on his country and teammates, but longtime friend and former juniors teammate Connor McDavid.
Ultimately, though, it didn’t end in Canada’s favor; Jack Hughes scored the golden goal in 3-on-3 overtime for a 2-1 win, giving the Americans their first gold medal 46 years to the day of the 1980 “Miracle On Ice” in Lake Placid.
“A lot of heartbreak, but a heck of a hockey game to watch. Just as a fan of hockey, my heart was racing and i had the palm sweats going the whole game,” Strome said after Canada fell 2-1 in overtime. “Two great hockey countries going at it, and credit to the USA, they found a way.”
Not only did the game live up to the hype that it’d promised, and not only will it go down as an instant classic, but it’s also set to inspire the next generation of hockey players, the ones who want to be the next Jack Hughes.
You can also take Connor Hellebuyck as a prime example. He stopped 41 of 42 shots for gold, and his performance alone, including that iconic paddle save on Devon Toews, will be one that kids will reenact in mini sticks and at practices for years to come.
There’s a good chance, too, that a child will go to their parents, begging to become a goaltender, just because of that one sequence, which is growing not just the game of hockey, but the position, too.
“Just a lot of humans watching that game, and after (that) there’s going to be a lot more. It definitely grew the game,” Lindgren pointed out. “There’s going to be a lot more hockey players down the road just because of the product they put on the ice today.”
That’s why, after going through a plethora of texts from friends, even ones he hadn’t heard from in years, Carbery penned a message to Martin Fehervary.
Fehervary and the Slovakians came in fourth at this year’s Olympics after falling to Finland in the bronze medal game, but he still made his mark.
Slovakia itself is a mainly mountainous country with a population of 5.4 million, and most certainly isn’t the biggest, but now, it has a reputation as a hockey country as the sport is seeing a resurgence.
Carbery wants Fehervary to take some credit for that.
“He should be so proud, because there’s young Slovakian kids that watch their country compete and watch Marty Fehervary wear a letter on his jersey and do everything he could for his country. They watch that, they go, ‘I want to play that spot, Mom or Dad. I want to go out and skate,'” Carbery explained. “That’s what growing the game is all about. That’s what a game like today in a tournament like the Olympics and hockey, being on that stage, can do for the sport.”
This isn’t a new phenomenon in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area; Alex Ovechkin’s historic tenure with the Capitals, where he became the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer, single-handedly turned the DMV into a hockey town, with the “Ovechkin Effect” also inspiring a whole new wave of hockey players and fans.
But now, to see that cultural moment spread across the nation, and then the world, is another feat in itself. And ultimately, it’s moments like that one that made NHL players’ return to the Olympics well worth it.
Even that early on a Sunday morning, before that fresh cup of coffee.
“You’re always trying to grow the game and expand it in different communities where it hasn’t been before,” Leonard pointed out. “That game was great for the U.S. and Canadian people and just people around the world.
“Who knows how many numbers or how many people were watching or what the numbers would be. It didn’t matter that it was that early (of a game). I know a lot of people in the world were waking up for that. It didn’t matter what time it was.”
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