![\"Brad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/EHR4AV6FBTDVCXLIFK2DQRNTAY.jpg\")
Brad Marchand (63), captain Connor McDavid and the rest of the Canadian team try to come to grips to losing Sunday’s gold-medal final to the United States. DOUG MILLS\/NYT<\/p>\nGet Starting Point<\/p>\n
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n
Take a bow, Megan Keller and Jack Hughes, legends for life on an Eruzione level. Off the stick of Hughes, the men captured their first gold since the iconic 1980 Winter Olympics, and their first ever in a Games not held on US soil. Off the stick of Keller, captain of the Boston Fleet and a BC product, the US women took home gold for the third time since the women skaters were introduced into the five-ring festival in 1998.<\/p>\n
The high-stakes hockey (tariff-free) represented the best sports have to offer, reminiscent in these parts of the early aughts battles between the Sox and Yankees and the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts \u2014 dramatic, intense, and engrossing. They\u2019re battles that strike that sweet spot of feeling familiar yet unpredictable at the same time, hence the enhanced thrill of victory and agony of defeat. <\/p>\n
Losing hurts more because it\u2019s them. <\/p>\n
Brad Marchand (63), captain Connor McDavid and the rest of the Canadian team try to come to grips to losing Sunday’s gold-medal final to the United States. DOUG MILLS\/NYT<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s the best rivalry in the sport,\u201d said Canada women\u2019s captain Marie-Philip Poulin after her team\u2019s defeat<\/a>. One slight correction, Marie-Philip: no article required in front of sport. It\u2019s the best rivalry in sport, as the Brits would say.<\/p>\n The ingredients present in any great sports rivalry are passion, bragging rights, repeated competition, and enmity. USA vs. Canada in hockey weaves them all into those sweaters. They stand for national pride and stand in each other\u2019s way. <\/p>\n All but one of the eight Olympic women\u2019s hockey gold medal games has featured the USA vs. Canada. It\u2019s now Canada 4, United States 3.<\/p>\n This century, the US men lost to Canada in the Olympic gold medal match in 2002 in Salt Lake City, and on Sidney Crosby\u2019s glorious golden goal at the 2010 Vancouver Games. More recently, the Canadian All-Stars one-upped the red, white, and blue in the instant-classic 4 Nations Face-Off final<\/a> last February at TD Garden, with Connor McDavid doing what he couldn\u2019t do in Sunday\u2019s gold medal game \u2014 slipping the puck past American goalie Connor Hellebuyck in overtime.<\/p>\n Watching both gold medal games was sports fan nirvana \u2014 exhilarating, exhausting emotionally, and excellent. <\/p>\n I could watch the men play each other for a month straight, given how white hot their cold war confrontations are. The US skaters made no secret they wanted the Canadian Dream Team in the gold medal game. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the final that we wanted and the team that we wanted to play,\u201d said Millis-raised Matt Boldy, who spectacularly scored the first US goal in the gold medal game. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting for the fans and for hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n A moment to acknowledge that while the rivalries are equally heated on the men\u2019s and women\u2019s sides, they\u2019re not equal matchups. <\/p>\n The United States is the favorite and heavyweight on the women\u2019s side. They\u2019ve tilted the ice to the south. They\u2019ve defeated Canada eight straight times. The powerhouse US women outscored opponents, 33-2, and won all seven of their contests on the way to becoming golden gals. <\/p>\n Someone tell the president that most of their games were the real laughers. Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman acknowledged<\/a> he and his USA Hockey teammates shouldn\u2019t have played the compliant studio audience for President Trump\u2019s humor, undercutting their female counterparts\u2019 achievement. <\/p>\n The men\u2019s version of hockey\u2019s Battle of North America was more of a toss-up. The teams served up an edge-of-your-seat sequel to their 4 Nations showdown. <\/p>\n Kudos to the NHL Players\u2019 Association for pushing for the return to the Olympic stage after the league sidelined players for 2018 in Pyeongchang and 2022 in Beijing. Sometimes the NHL wins in spite of itself. <\/p>\n The Yanks, who finished 6-0, hadn\u2019t defeated Canada in a medal game in a best-on-best tournament since winning the 1996 World Cup of Hockey by upending their rivals, 5-2, in the deciding game of the best-of-three final.<\/p>\n Unfazed by hockey\u2019s Harlem Globetrotters, the United States prevailed on American can-do attitude, grit, great individual efforts to win puck battles on both goals, and goaltending for the ages from three-time Vezina Trophy winner and reigning NHL MVP Hellebuyck. <\/p>\n Hellebuyck\u2019s divine prevention save on Canada\u2019s Devon Toews will forever be part of American hockey lore, memorialized in bars, rinks, and basements. It alone, never mind his 41 additional saves, is worthy of the Presidential Medal of Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the American players were celebrated by their government for days, the absence of gold for the Canadian men is a national calamity and cause for soul-searching. It\u2019s exacerbated by the current state of relations between the two countries. You know, all that 51st state taunting from President Trump.<\/p>\n Perpetually forced into America\u2019s shadow, despite geographically owning the high ground, it\u2019s tough for Canada to lose to us in a sport so closely tied to their national identity. <\/p>\n Almost the moment Hughes whistled the puck past Jordan Binnington, there was lament and consternation from north of the border<\/a> about the players that Canada general manager Doug Armstrong left off an embarrassment of riches roster that looked embarrassed accepting those silver medals.<\/p>\n This would be akin to Toronto-born Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Canadian men\u2019s basketball team downing a USA Basketball Dream Team for the gold at the Summer Olympics. <\/p>\n Only one country won gold in the USA-Canada hockey head-to-heads, but we won as sports fan, watching the mettle of both countries.<\/p>\n Best. Rivalry. Going.<\/p>\n Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com<\/a>. Follow him @cgasper<\/a> and on Instagram @cgaspersports<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Boston](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IKETDOV5IYGDUA2ZYVMAA36MTY.jpg\")
Boston Fleet captain Megan Keller scores the golden goal to give Team USA the 2-1 victory over Canada last Thursday.Alexander Nemenov\/Associated Press<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/KOF7VXDQAVFNBPM6GHI5O2TYEE.jpg\")
The Americans’ gold medal victory had a decidedly Massachusetts flair, with Millis’ own Matt Boldy (left) and Norwood’s Noah Hanifin (right) donning the hard-earned hardware.Gregory Shamus\/Getty<\/p>\n![\"US](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/74JTXYNMVFAVFJZ6SR32FCHLEE.jpg\")
US goaltender Connor Hellebuyck earned all the plaudits, and he’ll soon be getting another medal to add to his collection. ALEXANDER NEMENOV\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n