Thirty years ago, the United States hockey team faced, and defeated, a Soviet Union team that was called unbeatable. This year, the United States is celebrating a miniature version of 1980’s miracle on ice after defeating the Canadian hockey team in the 2010 winter Olympic games. The host of this year’s Olympics is Vancouver, so that makes the defeat doubly hard for the Canadians to handle, though so far they’ve done so with grace. There were a few brief exchanges between American and Canadian fans, but for the most part but these exchanges were few.

The favored Canadians were doomed from the beginning. America scored only 41 seconds into the match. The excitement surrounding the 30 year anniversary of the miracle on ice no doubt helped motivate the young American Olympians as they took on what has been described as an All-Star team of Canadian hockey players. They not only defeated the team, but did it on Canada’s home ice.

The Americans won no medal and Canada is still in the race. For now, all they’ve earned is a bye and a lot of respect from a world that expected them to do nothing but lose to a superior Canadian squad. People have commented that Ryan Miller’s goaltending was especially pivotal in the 5-3 victory.

Canada now faces a one game elimination match against Germany. The United States team will sit out a round and wait for the outcome of the Switzerland or Belarus match. They will play the victor on Wednesday.

Oh No, Team USA Defeat Team Canada