Winter Olympic Hockey Thread (mens or womens)

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USA USA USA​

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Well, whaddaya know...didn't anyone acknowledge the "Miracle On Ice" anniversary?

Happy Anniversary, Miracle on Ice -- NHL FanHouse

 

I did, I celebrated by watching the movie appropriately "Miracle" AND watched the Miracle on Ice game the same day....USA USA USA! We'll get em in Sochi!!!

 

Cerebral Goalies

From the NY Times profile of USA goalie Ryan Miller:


Goalies have always been known as a thoughtful lot, observing events from a slight remove behind their masks, like Ken Dryden meditating on the history of the game when he was not kicking out shots with astonishing efficiency, or Jacques Plante thinking of ways to reinvent goaltending technique as he knitted caps between games and championships.

So it should not come as a surprise — although it still is — when Ryan Miller answered a routine question about whether he was looking forward to the Olympics with this:

“When you grind out a season and shoot for the playoffs, which are the end-all, be-all, you forget what it’s like to play tournament hockey,” he said. “But when you’re a kid, the entire season is about the challenge cups and the tournaments. That’s kind of what hockey was originally — the Stanley Cup was a challenge cup, and it evolved into a professional sports season. Hockey has its roots in tournament, and it’s a lot of fun to get back to that.”

Miller was talking about the state of the Stanley Cup more than 100 years ago, something a lot of hockey writers are only dimly aware of, much less its top players. Typical cerebral goaltender.

But Miller is far from a typical goaltender. A member of the Buffalo Sabres organization since leaving Michigan State after his junior year in 2002, Miller has almost singlehandedly put the modest Sabres into the upper reaches of the N.H.L. standings with the league’s highest save percentage.

“Ryan Miller has been the best goalie in the National Hockey League this season,” Brian Burke, the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafsand of the United States Olympic team, said in December.

At 6 feet 2 inches and 170 pounds, Miller is long, lanky and lean — almost skeletally so. But he is strong and durable, handling about three-quarters of the work in the Buffalo nets the last four seasons.

Born in East Lansing, Mich., into a family that sent his grandfather, father, younger brother, uncle and five cousins to the Michigan State hockey team, Miller grew up with playing for the Spartans as his only goal. In his three collegiate seasons he set an N.C.A.A. record with 26 shutouts, and in 2001 he became only the second goalie to win the Hobey Baker award as the nation’s top college player.

He was recovering from an injury in 2006 and was not selected for the United States Olympic team, an omission that many fans thought was ill advised. (Not Miller: “Some people reacted like I got slighted or punched in the stomach or something,” he said. “But it was a business decision.”) But Miller has represented his country three times at the I.I.H.F. World Championship, registering a tournament-best .949 save percentage in 2002.

Indeed, Miller has that international touch, as anyone who saw his 2008 commercial for an energy drink may remember, when he played the dozens with an opposing goalie by dissing his mother — in a Mandarin that native speakers said was not bad at all. Typical goalie.

 

Polite Trash Talking, according to USA goalie Ryan Miller‏

From the NY Times after the first US vs Canada game:

“We were just playing against the boys in the red uniforms, but the crowd made it exciting,” Miller said. “It was a fun environment. I’ve been walking around the last few nights and taking some of the trash talking.”

Trash talking? In Canada?

“It was actually the most polite trash talking I’ve ever heard in my life, because we’re in Canada,” Miller said. “Most of them were just, ‘Hey, that’s Ryan Miller, the American goalie.’ And their friends would rally around and say, ‘Go Canada,’ or something like that.

“They know the game, they respect the game,” he said, calm and collected after a victory he helped secure. “That’s what makes it great to come here and play.”