Brian Leetch is not only a member of the Greatest Generation of USA hockey players that arrived en masse soon after (and inspired by) the Miracle at Lake Placid.
For the Hall of Fame defenseman was captain of the only US team to ever win a best-on-best tournament, the 1996 World Cup of Hockey that the Yanks captured with a Game 3 victory over Canada in Montreal in the best-of-three final round.
“For us, it was always Canada as our main rival,” Leetch, who represented the US in 11 international tournaments that included the 1988, 1998 and 2002 Olympics, told The Post on Thursday.
“When we played Russia, the historical aspect of 1980 was always a major part of it, but my teammates and I wanted the US to be looked at as the equivalent of Canada regarding the hierarchy of NHL players,” Leetch said. “They were always the favorites, certainly when games were played on North American ice.
“We always looked at Canada as the team we wanted to become and beat. And doing that in ’96 provided an incredible sense of accomplishment.”
Eighteen years later, though not in a final, the US goes after its second-ever victory over Canada in a best-on-best knockout round when the Yanks and Canadians meet in an Olympic semifinal match (noon, NBCSN) on Friday in Sochi that follows the showdown between Sweden and Finland (7 a.m., NBCSN).
Sunday, the winners will meet for gold, four years after the gold-medal match in Vancouver in which Canada defeated the US on Sidney Crosby’s goal in overtime and 12 years after the gold medal match in Salt Lake City in which Leetch and 14 of his ’96 World Cup teammates lost to Canada, 5-2.
“We had a lot of the same group that actually started forming in 1984,” Leetch said. “We’d grown up together, we’d gone into the NHL together and won together in ’96.
“We’d been together for a long time.”
This union of American hockey players began forming at the 2003 World Junior Tournament in Nova Scotia, with current Olympians Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Ryan Kesler, Dustin Brown and Jimmy Howard on the squad that finished fourth, one year before the US captured its first gold medal in the history of the event with Al Montoya knocking off Marc-Andre Fleury and Canada in the ’04 final.
“When you get that type of familiarity, it can only be positive in building a team identity when there’s so little time to prepare for a tournament like this,” said Leetch, who is in his first year on the staff of the NHL Department of Player Safety. “It’s good away from the rink, too, and that translates.”
The Americans have been outstanding since their skates hit the ice in Sochi in playing an intelligent up-tempo brand of hockey that has been Red, White, Black-and-Blue. The Canadians still seem to be searching for an identity. Yet the US and Canada are each 4-0 in the tournament with three victories apiece in regulation, with the Yanks taking one in a shootout and the Canadians one in overtime.
“I really like what I’ve seen from the US team,” Leetch said. “They’ve been very impressive in how they’ve come together so quickly and almost seamlessly.
“It’s obviously a very well-coached team with guys knowing their roles and carrying them out.”
Leetch, vacationing with family and friends at a ski resort in Vermont, is in his first year on the staff of the NHL Department of Player Safety, the job to which he will return when the league reconvenes beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 26.
“It’s been great getting to watch this hockey as a fan and not watching replays of questionable plays all night every night,” Leetch said. “Like every other hockey fan over here, it was a little tough at first to get used to the games being on at 7 a.m. and noon, but it became the routine pretty quickly, and you wind up planning your day around the early games.
“Watching that gold-medal game in Vancouver surrounded by so many fans from the USA was just a great, great experience…until the very end, anyway, when Crosby scored.
“I’m looking forward to watching [Friday], but this time with a different ending,” said Captain America. “There’s nothing the ’96 guys want more than to have this Team USA join us.”