In spite of the disappointment losing to Canada in overtime in the gold-medal game at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, there was nonetheless a feeling that emotional night that this was a seminal moment for the United States, an arrival of sorts.
Or make that a return, the silver medal providing a connector to earlier moments of defining national hockey moments: the 1996 victory in the World Cup of Hockey over Canada and the 1980 Miracle On Ice gold medal in Lake Placid Olympics.
But somehow by the time the Americans had limped home from the Sochi Olympics in 2014, having been shut out in their final two games and embarrassed by a less-talented Finnish team in the bronze-medal game, the feeling was that line had been broken -- or, at the very least, bent.