Today marks the 30th anniversary of the famous “Miracle on Ice” game. If you have no idea what that was, I first wonder why you’re browsing this particular hockey blog, and then I suggest you go rent/download/buy the movie Miracle. I myself am going to watch it for the 18,483rd time tonight.

I’ve posted stuff for the Miracle on Ice in the past – here is an essay I wrote for a college app once upon a time that examined the political and social implications of the game, here are wallpapers that I posted yesterday, and here are two banners from way back when.

What makes this anniversary so great and prominent, besides the fact that it’s the 30th, is because of an event that happened last night. It was a big event unto itself, no matter what the outcome: the Canada and USA men’s hockey teams were battling it out in the Olympics. Not in a medal game or an elimination round, but just the preliminaries that serve only to establish seeding. Basically, a meaningless game. But Canada was expected to win, and win big – and they didn’t. The US pulled out a 5-3 win on the back of two Brian Rafalski goals and some stellar Ryan Miller goaltending.

That was the celebration after an empty-net goal. No, seriously.

Second-most viewed hockey game in the US since the Miracle on Ice, and second only to the US-Canada gold medal game back in 2002. Pretty impressive, considering it was on MSNBC, which a lot of people don’t even get. Something like 30% of Canada watched it.

But really, this post wasn’t meant to be about last night’s game. As Brian Burke said (and I’m paraphrasing here), “You don’t win any medals from being first in the preliminaries.” Next Sunday is the gold medal game. It is only possible for one of Canada, Russia, and Sweden (the three favorites going into the Olympics) to play in it. This is going to be fun.