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“Will SI make it a cover story?”

Oh, I suppose it’s possible the U.S. Women’s Hockey team might get a cover - if SI doesn’t give it to the gay skater (Rippon?) for his “brave” resistance to the evil Mike Pence and his brutal Christianity.

For several years after 1980 I could recite the names of all of the players from that U.S. team: Jim Craig, Mike Eruzione, Dave Christian, and Mark Pavelich, Buzz Schneider, Phil Verchota and Rob McClanahan - heck, I even knew how to spell Steve Janaszak’s name (and he never played a single minute if I recall correctly). There is zero chance - except perhaps for a very small number of hockey playing young girls - that kids today are taking the time to learn the names of the Gold Medal winning U.S. Women’s Hockey Team. That’s for several reasons:

- Times have changed.
- Their win over Canada was not a decisive victory in regular time (a shoot out?!).
- The Canadian women are not nearly as dominant as the Soviets were back then. The Soviets had not lost a single game in 12 years (1968-1980!).
- Almost no one is watching this Olympics. Many people have NBC’s coverage and now so many people have 150 channels to choose from.
- This wasn’t as unexpected as the 1980 win.
- It didn’t happen on U.S. soil where people could watch it all unfold in real time.