Charles Barkley on U.S. men’s hockey gold-medal win: ‘I was screaming all by myself!’
Published:
Charles Barkley is obviously a basketball lifer, from his childhood days playing the sport in Alabama to his glorious college days at Auburn to his legendary days in the NBA.
He is synonymous with the sport, and that will never change. But you know what else won’t change for Barkley? His love of hockey, whether he’s spouting off about an NHL playoff game while doing his regular job as an NBA analyst or, in Sunday’s case, it’s representing the U.S. men’s hockey team on a very special day in Olympic history.
Sunday happened to be the anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” when on Feb. 22, 1980, a gritty group of U.S. hockey players took down the mighty Soviet Union in the Olympic semifinals in Lake Placid, N.Y. Exactly 46 years later, over in Italy this time, another group of U.S. hockey players, this time filled with NHL experience, wrote another chapter in Olympic hockey glory by outlasting favored Canada 2-1 in overtime to capture the United States’ first men’s hockey gold since, you guessed it, 1980.
And Barkley, Mr. Basketball, enjoyed every minute of the hockey drama, even though he had to wake up really early in the morning to watch the amazing theatre. When Inside the NBA came on the air on Sunday, after the historical victory on the final day of the Winter Olympics, Barkley was proudly sporting a USA hockey jersey. He had made one of his famous (or infamous) guarantees on the air on Saturday night, telling the world that the U.S. was going to beat Canada, so the Americans’ conquest of Canada really had Barkley fired up.
“Man, that was worth getting up for. I was screaming all by myself!” Barkley said.
With Olympic hockey now over, as the U.S. men’s and women’s hockey teams both captured gold, Barkley will now shift his love for hockey back to the NHL, which resumes its season this week.
Soon, Barkley will be making NHL playoff predictions on the air, but he definitely won’t forget what happened thousands of miles away in Italy, early wakeup call and all.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
