USA overcomes early scare to beat Latvia today

Team USA made their 2026 Olympics debut today, earning a 5-1 win in their preliminary game against the always plucky Latvians.

While the Americans started off the game like a house on fire, they cooled down significantly... well, the refs cooled them down actaully.

The game started with a barn burning goal courtesy of the Tkachuk brothers.

Check out this sick snipe from Brady Tkachuk, who was tee'd up by his brother Matthew Tkachuk:

The Americans kept pouring it on and appeared to take a 2-0 lead thanks to a snipe from defenseman Quinn Hughes, but the goal was reversed after a successful off-side coach's challenge from Lavtia.

American forward Brock Nelson was off-side by just a hair on USA's zone entrance.

You can imagine what happened next?

Buoyed by the call falling in their favor the Latvian's came right down the ice to equalize the score:

At that point we appeared to have a game on our hands, at least for a moment.

I say that because the Americans appeared to take the lead once again but the play was challenged for goaltender interference. After quite a lengthy review referees ruled that American forward JT Miller in fact DID interfere with Latvian goaltender Elvis Merzlikins, leading to a 'no goal' call.

Check it out:

Yeeeeesh...

That's a tough call.

And, look, I'm a goalie. I'm all for protecting the goalie and letting him establish position to make saves. In my eyes Miller didn't interfere with Merzlikins' ability to do either of those things. This was a blown call, in my opinion.

Brock Nelson has given Team USA their second goal (for the third time, if you can believe it) in today's game against Latvia and this time it's a no doubter.

After having two goals called back by the officials for Coach's Challenge, the Americans finally have a goal count and Nelson gave a little bit of sauce to the officials by using the 'good goal' gesture in his goal celebration.

From there, the Americans just continued to pile on. I mean, just look at these goals:

And that's a wrap... a well earned victory for the boys in red, white and blue.

Shoutout to Latvia for at least making things interesting for the better part of 20 minutes though.