As USA Hockey has experienced tremendous growth and won many international tournaments in men’s and women’s hockey, there has been one that has seemingly been out of reach.
The United States has not won a gold medal at the IIHF Men’s World Championship since 1933. They haven’t even played for one since 1934. That is going to change Sunday at 2:20 p.m. ET as the United States meets Switzerland for the chance to eliminate one of the most embarrassing factoids of USA Hockey’s international history.
USA advanced to the final thanks to an impressive effort that saw them jump on host and heavily-favored Sweden, earning a 6-2 victory. When you consider this is the same U.S. team that very nearly sustained one of the most embarrassing defeats in USA’s tournament history – blowing a 5-1 lead over Norway before winning 6-5 in overtime – the fact that this team reached this previously unreached stage is a stunner.
But it is still very well earned, after downing Sweden and Finland in the playoff round and sustaining just one loss to date in the tournament. No matter how you look at it, this U.S. team is doing something many of us never thought we’d see.
USA hasn’t even won so much as a silver at this event since 1950. They’ve had a lot of bronze wins, including four in the last 12 years that at least suggested they were starting to get closer. Yet there always seemed to be a ceiling that stopped right at the semifinal round.
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 91 YEARS, TEAM USA IS HEADING TO THE #MENSWORLDS GOLD MEDAL GAME🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/b5Tq0rIsgc
Now they’ve guaranteed no worse than their best finish in the tournament in 75 years, but in order to exorcise 92 years of demons in a tournament that it should have probably won a few times by now, the medal they bring back to the USA has to be gold.
Since the IIHF Men’s World Championship became an annually held event in 1930, with hockey being introduced as an Olympic sport 10 years prior, USA’s one gold medal in 95 years of the event should be more unbelievable than it is.
Because the tournament runs concurrently with the Stanley Cup Finals, and because it has had limited TV distribution in the U.S. over the years, the tournament has become an afterthought. Some have believed that the lack of attention on Team USA at this event has seeped into the players’ motivations. There’s never been pressure to win the event and you could tell that some years, players were more interested in the free vacation to Europe than trying to win gold.
More talented teams have seen their tournaments end much, much sooner than this year’s team. Admittedly, I did not think the drought would have a chance of ending this year.
When you look at the players Canada was able to land for the tournament – Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Four Nations hero Jordan Binnington and a host of others that could play for Canada at the Olympics, and you look at USA’s much younger an inexperienced roster, on paper they don’t look like they should match up.
Yet Canada bowed out in the quarterfinals to Denmark in one of the most stunning results of this tournament’s history. Two days later, Denmark got blown out by Switzerland 7-0 in the semifinal, making Canada’s loss all the more confusing.
Let’s be clear: The Worlds is hardly a measuring stick. With teams never able to ice their best rosters given the Stanley Cup Playoffs running simultaneously and plenty of players not feeling much like another three weeks of hockey after a long season, this will never be a best-on-best. But even though it’s not a measuring stick, USA’s failures at this tournament have only proven more confounding and downright disturbing as time marches on.
The tournament is not super popular in Canada, either, yet the Canadians have found a way to win this event seven times in the last 25 years and 28 all-time, most recently in 2023.
Canada’s ability to get players who want to play in this tournament whenever they get the chance, when players like Crosby and MacKinnon sign on, and USA isn’t able to get the same from its biggest stars, it should be troubling.
Additionally, with NHL players returning to the Olympics, American players have to take some ownership of the fact that there have been no gold medals since the Miracle on Ice for the men’s team. If players take that personally, perhaps they’d be more willing to attend the Men’s Worlds to help lay the foundation for more success when it really is best on best. Many of these players have won gold medals at World Juniors or U18 Worlds, but sometimes you have to re-learn how to win at this level. International hockey is a different beast than the NHL, even at the Worlds level.
I asked Tage Thompson about the U.S. gold medal drought (since 1933) before Men’s Worlds began. His response is poignant now.
“That’s why most of us are here. We want to be part of that group that can say we won gold.” @NHLNetwork @BuffaloSabres @USAHockeyNTDP pic.twitter.com/KqCjI5xAm6
But there’s another reason this tournament should have some more importance to American players.
If nothing else, this is a tournament that can showcase the depth of your talent pool and that even the second- and third-tier players of your country can outclass other countries. USA just hasn’t done that despite the explosive growth of American hockey since the 1990s.
U.S. players now make up 30% of the NHL. Surely, they should be able to find rosters that can contend from that group. And while they have found contenders, this is the first time they’ve had a team actually get to the last game of the tournament.
Sure-fire Olympian Zach Werenski, who has expressed repeatedly that he felt it was important for him to play in this tournament to try and break the streak, has been a driving force behind this team’s success. Meanwhile, Olympic hopefuls Jeremy Swayman, Clayton Keller and Tage Thompson, have played leading roles. Then it’s been the rising young players and prospects like Matty Beniers, Logan Cooley, Frank Nazar, Zeev Buium, Cutter Gauthier, Will Smith, Shane Pinto, Jackson Lacombe and others, taking this team over the top.
Somehow this mix has worked, even if it looked like a longshot coming in. USA is the youngest team in the tournament with an average age of 24.48, per Elite Prospects.
Additionally, Team USA is led by a rookie head coach who has won a Calder Cup, but just completed his first season with the worst record in the NHL. Yet Ryan Warsofsky’s team has played its best hockey at the end of the tournament. Many of his more experienced peers have never been able to get that same kind of result.
The team was also put together by Jeff Kealty, a longtime employee of the Nashville Predators who has worked his way up over 25 years as an amateur scout, to director of scouting, to assistant general manager.
USA Hockey has been giving some of the up-and-coming AGMs in the NHL a chance to run this team, but there were a number of no’s from prospective players and injuries that Kealty had to work around to put together a credible team. When USA was able to get a good core of veterans, they looked to the younger, perhaps hungrier players to fill out the rest.
It was a strategy that has been tried before, but sometimes it hasn’t worked out. This time it did.
As the USA players echoed to each other after beating Sweden, the job is not done. They’ve already secured the best finish for the country in 50 years, but erasing 92 years of disappointments and, for a time, apathy towards this tournament will take a bit more work.
Job’s not done. 🇺🇸 #MensWorlds pic.twitter.com/yQwXFPd47a
Switzerland beat Team USA 3-0 earlier in the tournament with Leonardo Genoni stopping all 23 shots he faced. He has a .945 save percentage in the tournament to date.
The Swiss also boast NHLers Timo Meier and Kevin Fiala, among others, but will be without captain Nico Hischier, who had to bow out of the tournament due to injury. Switzerland’s scoring leader has been California-born, Harvard-educated and longtime Swiss pro Tyler Moy, who has 12 points so far in the tournament.
Who will win it all? 🏆#MensWorlds #IIHF @SwissIceHockey @usahockey pic.twitter.com/VaIhqoevsf
Team USA will counter with a roster that is made up exclusively of NHL players, save for Hobey Baker winner Isaac Howard and NCAA champion goalie Hampton Slukynsky, who have not been in the lineup much in the tournament.
They have been led by Chicago Blackhawks rookie Frank Nazar, who has 12 points. Logan Cooley has 11, while Conor Garland, Clayton Keller and Shane Pinto each have 10 points.
Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski has been USA’s leader on the blue line, averaging over 25 minutes a game and putting up six points in six games since arriving a few days late.
The Americans are expected to turn to Boston Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman, who is undefeated in tournament play with a .905 save percentage.
A lot has changed since the two teams met back on May 12, but we’ll see if the result does when the puck drops at 2:20 p.m. ET.
The 2025 IIHF Men’s World Championship Gold Medal Game will be played Sunday, May 25 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Team USA will meet Team Switzerland Sunday at 2:20 p.m. ET
Team USA’s game is available exclusively in the United States on NHL Network. There is no streaming option for the game.
The gold-medal game will also air in Canada on TSN and stream on TSN+
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