Sometimes tooth is stranger than fiction. Hockey players, our favorite gap-smiling athletes, have delivered again. Team USA and Canada advanced Sunday’s gold medal game in Italy. Yes, please. This is the real heated rivalry. It is 4 Nations Face-Off, the sequel. But let’s be clear, Canada needs this more than the U.S. The Americans are underdogs with attitude, a team capable of winning, but failure will not define them like, say, a Super Bowl. That is what this is for Canada. An entire country is counting on Nathan MacKinnon and Co. to deliver a golden moment. The Americans are trying to win their first gold medal since the 1980 Miracle on Ice. But there is a real difference. There will never be another Lake Placid. It was exactly what the United States needed with the economy tanking and the Cold War frigid as ever. It was a “Rocky” movie come to life. The Italian Stallion vs. Drago. Mike Eruzione vs. Vladimir Myshkin (Thank you for benching Vladislav Tretiak). The Americans stunned the Soviet Union in the semifinals, a team that clobbered them 10-3 in an exhibition game in New York City a few days before. The victory marked the first time “U-S-A!” chants broke out at a sporting event. The support Sunday morning will be enormous, but the Americans are no longer The Little Engine That Could. They blasted Slovakia 6-2 in the semifinals. They are not college kids from the top programs in the Midwest and East. They are…
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