Free Republic

Flanked by members of the famed "Miracle on Ice" U.S. Olympic hockey team, President Trump celebrated the team's captivating 1980 performance at a campaign rally on Friday. Forty years removed from defeating the Russian hockey team in the semi-finals of the 1980 Olympic Games, Trump honored the U.S. team's historic victory by bringing captain Mike Eruzione and coach Herb Brooks's daughter onstage during a campaign stop in Las Vegas. The team stood behind Trump as the president ran through his stump speech and lashed out at the fake news media. The players wore red Make America Great Again hats and...

COLUMBUS, OHIO -- John Tortorella, the coach of Team USA for the upcoming World Cup of Hockey, isn't backing off on his comments that he'd bench any player who didn't stand for the U.S. national anthem. On Tuesday, Tortorella told ESPN: "If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game." The coach seemed taken aback Wednesday by the reaction to his comment, but he did not backtrack on his stance. "I'm not backing off," Tortorella said after the team's on-ice workout Wednesday.

VANCOUVER - The Americans didn’t believe in miracles. They just believed. And they pulled off the biggest Olympic hockey upset since the Miracle on Ice, stunning Canada 5-3 on Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals of an already mixed-up tournament. Brian Rafalski scored two goals, Ryan Miller held off a flurry of shots and the Americans quieted a raucous, pro-Canada crowd that came to cheer its dream team, only to see it upstaged by a bunch of unproven kids. One day short of the 30th anniversary of the country’s greatest hockey victory — the unfathomable win over the Soviet Union...

Modano goal: whine, not win TURIN - Old. Slow. Small. Team USA was all of that, even before it took the ice against Finland. Then as Peter Laviolette watched his once-great generation of American hockey players go about its sad business of losing an Olympic hockey quarterfinal, 4-3, the coach came up with his own adjective: Disinterested. This was something he hadn't counted on, so Laviolette called timeout midway through the first period and screamed at his players that if they didn't find a modicum of passion out there, "We're done." His face was flushed. His tongue was sharp. But...

VANCOUVER (CP) - The excitement that Nikolai Kulemin felt regarding what his team had just accomplished was tempered by the anticipation of the task that lay ahead. Kulemin scored two goals, the second a great individual effort on a power play, as Russia defeated the United States 5-1 on Tuesday night to advance to the gold medal game at the world junior hockey championship. Russia will play Canada in Thursday's final (TSN, 7 p.m. ET). "It's a huge responsibility," Kulemin said through an interpreter. "We have to prepare very seriously for that game and we will play to win." The...