BEIJING — The U.S. men's hockey team hasn't won Olympic gold since Herb Brooks' young, energetic college kids overcame prohibitive odds — and the mighty Soviets — before becoming champions in 1980. Hoping to end that drought, architects of the U.S. men's roster for the Beijing Games reached back to one of Brooks' many memorably pithy sayings: The legs feed the wolf.
Brooks' team wasn't the most skillful in Lake Placid. The Soviets, who trained together most of the year and were professionals by most definitions, were a well-oiled machine and were considered unbeatable. But Brooks made sure his team was the best conditioned, so players had the legs to outskate and outlast their opponents. They feasted when their older, more accomplished rivals faded. Their legs fueled their ambitions and made the impossible become possible.
After the NHL withdrew from the Beijing Olympic tournament in December, citing a pileup of COVID-19-related postponements that had already disrupted its schedule, U.S. Olympic general manager John Vanbiesbrouck and his staff saw one clear alternative. They would build around speed and construct a roster that would be younger than the seventh-place Pyeongchang team, which comprised mostly older pros playing in Europe and featured only three college players — Ryan Donato, Jordan Greenway, and current Ducks forward Troy Terry.
