The sting

After watching the American men's hockey team play in their first two games in person and then the third on the television in the media center, I had a pretty good feeling about the team's chances in the tournament when it began today.

I should know better than to trust my feelings. They are rarely right.

I had an interview this afternoon and then had to catch a bus to the train station to make it up to the mountain zone, so I wasn't at the game, but I was in the Main Media Center watching from the second period on. It really looked like the Americans were going to pull out a close win over Slovakia and move on to the semifinals.

But, as we all know by now, that didn't happen. A bad bounce that was tipped past the US goaltender in the final minute of the game sent the two teams to overtime and then to penalty shots before the Slovakian team was able to get one by in the fifth round of the shootout, ending the American team's Olympics a bit too early.

This is a similar result to what the team had in 2018 in PyeongChang, but this one seemed to hurt a little more because it seems, after going undefeated in pool play including an impressive win over Canada, the US team was on a roll, playing well and ready to take the tournament by storm. The win over Canada was particularly impressive, given that it had been so long since a US team had done that.

But, like with the alpine skiing that I wrote about earlier in these Olympics, all it takes is one bad bounce and things can go the wrong way. No goalie is perfect, just as no skier is perfect. No matter how good a goalie is playing, the puck can find its way by at any time and if you don't have enough offense to put a few more on the board than the other team, you could find yourself on the wrong end of the scoreboard.

So, the Americans go home without a medal. Again. I really felt like this team had that "Miracle on Ice" feel to it, a group of young underdogs (for the most part anyway) going into a tournament with nothing to lose. The difference might be that those underdogs back in Lake Placid in 1980 had been playing together for a while. They had scrimmaged, they had practiced and they were a cohesive unit by the time the Olympics rolled around. This year's group only had a short period of time to get together and figure each other out once the NHL decided it wasn't letting its players compete in the Olympics.

Nonetheless, the sting is real. It's disappointing. But that's life and that's sports. Anything can happen on any given day.

And I should remember to not trust my feelings.

The US-Canada men's hockey game was a big win for the Americans, but they stumbled in the quarterfinals.