Courtesy of USA Hockey

The U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team will begin its pursuit of the gold medal on Thursday when it faces off against China. The team features two former Bulldogs, with forwards Brian O’Neill ’12 and Kenny Agostino ’14 donning the red, white and blue for the U.S.

The U.S. will look to get off to a hot start against a Chinese team that many project to be worst in the field. While the men’s hockey tournament includes 12 teams, China is currently ranked 32nd in the world by the International Ice Hockey Federation, or IIHF, and is only playing in the Olympics due to the automatic qualification it was granted as the host nation. 

Despite the automatic qualification, there was a long debate by the IIHF as to whether China should be allowed to compete in the Olympics while a team such as Norway, ranked 11th in the world, would not be. 

“Watching a team being beaten 15–0 is not good for anyone,” IIHF President Luc Tardif said to Agence France-Presse. “Not for China or for ice hockey.”

For the Americans, the goal will be to get their feet under them in a first game that projects to be their easiest of the tournament. 

To prepare for the opener, the U.S. held a controlled scrimmage against Canada on Monday that allowed the two teams to adjust to the high speed of Olympic games. 

The scrimmage’s lineup from head coach David Quinn pointed the spotlight firmly on the two former Bulldogs. O’Neill and Agostino played the wings on the top line for the U.S., with Andy Miele, Agostino’s teammate with Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo of the Kontinental Hockey League, centering the Yalies.

The scrimmage was also crucial for building chemistry as a team as head coach David Quinn noted.

“In these situations, we’ve been together for a week,” Quinn said to USA Hockey following the scrimmage. “It seems like a month — and it’s certainly good to see another opponent.”

Despite the relaxed nature of the scrimmage, the match against Canada will likely be more indicative of the rest of the tournament for the U.S., rather than the opening game against China. 

The U.S. will be playing round robin-style at the preliminary rounds in Group A with China, Canada and Germany. The later games to come against Canada and Germany — the 2018 bronze and silver medalists, respectively — will truly show just how strong this 2022 U.S. team will be. 

From team selection to the first scrimmage, the style of play the U.S. will look to adopt seems to come down to one word: speed. 

No NHL players have competed in the last two Olympic games, making the team selection process more important for the team general manager and head coach. For the 2018 Olympics, from which O’Neill is the only returning player for the Americans, the U.S. leaned on experience, preferring former NHL players with lots of experience over younger, more inexperienced players.

For Beijing, first-time general manager John Vanbiesbrouck decided to opt for a nearly opposite strategy. The squad he built is the youngest U.S. team since 1994 — before professional players were allowed at the Olympic Games — and is filled with speed on all four lines. 

“I really liked our speed, and I thought we did a lot of good things from that end of it,” Quinn said to USA Hockey in an interview. “When we stayed on top of them, I thought we were successful. When we backed off, we got ourselves in a little bit of trouble. But overall it was a pretty good effort.”

The U.S. and China will face off on Feb. 10 at 8:10 a.m. EST, or 9:10 p.m. China Standard Time.