I decided to reacquaint myself with hockey about 10 years ago. Like most American kids, hockey was a second tier interest behind football, basketball and baseball, so my attention waned into adulthood as other sports competed for my attention.

But I never forgot about the game entirely, and that was thanks in no small part to the Miracle on Ice team whose story remains as current as if their unlikely win over the Red Army occurred last week (and not 46 years ago).

The Detroit Red Wings also had something to do with it as well. They were the team of my youth back when being a fan was easy — Steve Yzerman (pictured below) was the captain, Darren McCarty was the enforcer, Brendan Shanahan was the preeminent winger, Nicklas Lidström was perhaps the greatest defender of his era, The Russian Five singlehandedly changed the perception of European players, Chris Osgood was a brick wall in front of the net, and of course the mastermind Scotty Bowman was the architect of their success.

The Wings are a fun franchise. They had the same singer perform the national anthem prior to home games for about 30 years. Fans have been throwing dead octopuses onto the rink since the ‘50s. And the team itself was also involved in the single greatest brawl in hockey (if not sports) history. So, despite expectations, my recommitment to Hockeytown was put to the test during seasons of futility in which they hadn’t made the playoffs in a decade.

Fast forward to earlier this month. The Wings are well positioned to make the postseason and, while the NHL was on Olympic hiatus, their captain Dylan Larkin was proving himself a valuable member of the men’s national team.

Although ranked #1 in the world since last year, the odds nonetheless seemed to be stacked against the Americans. Yet, while wearing near-identical uniforms to their 1980 predecessors, Team USA pulled off an overtime win against the Canadians to claim the gold medal, 46 years ago to the day in which a group of college kids (over half of whom were from Minnesota) pulled off perhaps the greatest upset in sports history, which some would say proved a foreshadowing to the outcome of the Cold War.

And this time around, the victory was claimed on George Washington’s 250th birthday. It really makes you proud to be an American.

(Go Wings.)

Photo by Andrea Branca/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images