That ringing that you're still hearing in your ears on Thursday morning is the wakeup call that the United States' hockey team received on Wednesday afternoon in a 2-0 win over Switzerland.
Yes, we'll give the Swiss some credit. After all, they did push Canada all the way to a shootout in the group stages of this tournament, and they played a whale of a game against the USA.
But let's be realistic here… It was Switzerland. Playing that exact same game against one of the powers of the hockey world would've ended in disaster for a team that has the #1 ranking coming into the knockout stages of this tourney.
As long as we're being realistic, we'll take a moment to be realistic about ourselves as well… We're not the best team in the world. We should be happy just to be standing in hockey's version of the Final Four.
The fun and games are over, though. The Americans have really only played one game of an consequence so for in this tourney, yet if you had asked any USA hockey fan at the outset of this tournament would they would if their team was going into a semifinal against Finland, they'd be pretty darn happy.
The Finnish nabbed the silver medals in Torino in 2006 after losing to Sweden in the finale. They know what it takes to reach the next level. This is a squad that grabbed the one wild card berth that issued a free pass to the quarterfinals this year, and went 5-0 and outscored its foes 19-2 in the group stages of the previous Olympic games.
If the Americans are going to stop the Fins, they're going to need yet another strong effort out of G Ryan Miller. Miller has been a demon between the pipes in these games so far, and he has clearly been the best goaltender of the bunch. The star of the Buffalo Sabres has stopped 85 of the 90 shots that he has faced, and even though he only has one shutout to his credit, it's clear that it's going to take quite a bit to beat him multiple times in a game.
What is keeping this American train rolling right now is the fact that someone else is constantly stepping up and making the big play offensively in front of Miller. F Zach Parise was the hero on Wednesday. After going scoreless in his first three games of this tournament, he scored both the game winner and the empty netter for the USA's only two goals of the contest.
For a team that only has 14 goals in the competition, the fact that ten different players have lit the lamp is amazing. There are only five pointless players on the American side, and even D Brooks Orpik has played his critical role, predominantly on penalty kills.
Half way across the world this morning, someone is writing a very similar looking article in Slovakia. The Slovaks are pulling off the same phenomenal feat as the Americans and, just like the USA, Slovakia is facing a daunting task going forward, as it has to face the red hot Team Canada in the semifinals.
Yes, in all likelihood, Slovakia and the United States are going to end up playing each other in Saturday's bronze medal game. But that doesn't have to be the case.
There's a little magic in the air in Vancouver right now surrounding this USA team, and if that wakeup call snapped the little engines that could back into the mindset of "US against the world," the stars and stripes might be the only thing stopping the Canadians from hoisting gold in their Olympics.
