NHL.com staff writer Mike Zeisberger has been covering the NHL regularly since 1999. Each Monday he will use his extensive network of hockey contacts for his weekly notes column, “Zizing 'Em Up,” to preview the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

TORONTO -- The impact of the United States men’s Olympic hockey team’s “Miracle On Ice” performance in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics ran far deeper than just an improbable gold medal.

It also spawned a new generation of American hockey players, kids like Keith Tkachuk and Mike Modano who were inspired to pursue the sport.

Sixteen years later, it was Tkachuk and Modano who helped do the same for the next set of NHL wannabes in the U.S. like Patrick Kane when they helped upset Canada to win the 1996 World Cup.

As such, Tkachuk says

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