Will gold-medal win change United States’ mentality in international play?

The United States’ men’s hockey team won Olympic gold following their 2-1 overtime victory over Canada on Sunday. It’s the Americans’ first gold medal since NHLers were allowed to participate in the Olympics, and their first gold-medal victory of any kind since their “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid in 1980.

On Sunday’s Daily Faceoff gold-medal post-game show, Jeff Marek, Jonny Lazarus and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss the U.S. victory and whether this could have an effect on the men’s side of the USA Hockey program.

Jeff Marek: I’ve always found that the U.S. men’s team was always uncomfortable with the idea that they were good, that they needed to be “underdogs.” That’s where USA Hockey was always comfortable. “Us against everybody, they don’t give us a chance.”

I talked to Brian Burke about Vancouver 2010, he always says “We were predicted to finish seventh.” Are you ever going to achieve consistant greatness if that’s how you think about yourself? The answer is no. That’s why I wonder if this tournament can be the turning point for USA Hockey, where finally, they don’t have to try and sell themselves as “the underdog,” and they have to get comfortable with that they can win.

We see it at the World Juniors all the time, all those kids believe they can win that tournament. Then you get to the Olympics and the 4 Nations and the World Championships and they’re only comfortable considering themselves underdogs. Do you think this tournament changes that?

Jonny Lazarus: I’m not sure this team will ever be favorites, as I still think Canada has the top-end talent, right? They have four of the five best players in the game, and it’s hard to try and twist that and say the U.S. are favorites.

After my friends I celebrated the U.S. winning, we paused and thought, “we’ve never seen this before. I’ve never seen USA men’s hockey win a gold medal in my life.” Canadians have seen it a couple times, and this is something we’ve never seen. This now starts the belief. How could you believe in something you’ve never seen before?

I think, to your point Jeff, there was never really a reason to think that it belonged to us, because we had never had it. Now that we’ve got a piece of it, you now believe you’re good enough.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…