United States players celebrate the gold medal with a team photo while holding the jersey of Johnny Gaudreau. Photo Credit: Geoff Burke
The USA victory over Canada in the men’s hockey gold medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics was one of the most emotional games American sports fans have ever witnessed.
After the medal ceremony, Jack Hughes, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime, spoke to reporters about the culture that drove this team. He said, “The USA Hockey brotherhood is so strong.”
The family culture that Hughes spoke about was best exhibited in the tear-jerking moments after the victory when several USA players held the jersey of Johnny Gaudreau as they skated around the rink. Gaudreau, a former USA player, and his brother, Matthew, were tragically killed by a drunk driver. Guadreau’s number 13 USA jersey hung in the team’s locker room throughout the tournament, and his two young children were brought out on the ice to be in the team championship picture.
Hughes spoke about how the USA Hockey brotherhood even extended beyond the current team members and included other players who represented the United States in the past. “All the guys we looked up to reached out to us,” explained Hughes. He added, “They sent some unbelievable messages, stuff that, you know, puts tears in your eyes.”
Seeing the sense of family of USA Hockey created a warm afterglow to the tournament, but why was the culture they created so important to their winning the gold? In the GameChange Training Camp, Building Championship Culture, high-performance coach, Dr. Michael Brown stated, “Culture is central. In fact, without a healthy culture, there is never, ever success.”
Creating a championship culture is something many teams would like to do, but how exactly do you do that? In the Building Championship Culture digital class, Dr. Brown lists seven key ingredients, with the first two focusing on the brotherhood aspect of culture that Hughes spoke about.
The seven steps that coaches and team leaders can take to build a championship culture are:
- Connection: Do the coaches, staff, and players feel a deep connection to each other? Dr. Brown said, “Having that base idea of deep connection that, ‘I see you, you see me, I know you, you know me, and I feel that.’”
- Care: This is a step beyond connection where the team not only knows each other on a deep level, but there is a sense of care that is spoken and/or exhibited. The players bringing Gaudreau’s kids into the team picture showed how much they cared about him, not as a hockey player, but as a human being. Without the first two, it is very challenging, maybe impossible, to implement the rest of the steps that are required to build a championship culture. Why? Because if members of the team don’t feel connected and cared about, then the tough stuff that is required to squeeze out the very best performances from players can often be tuned out or even resented.
- Challenge: The team should be regularly challenged to commit themselves to be the very best they can be. Challenges are good!
- Coaching: It might be obvious, but it’s important to say that teaching the fundamentals of the sport is, well, fundamental to success.
- Correction: Nobody is a master of every aspect of their craft, and a commitment to correcting individual and team mistakes is essential to becoming your very best.
- Don’t Criticize: You can challenge and correct without crossing the line into personal criticism. Speaking negatively or inappropriately about team members is unacceptable if you are trying to create a championship culture.
- Celebrate: It’s a long grind from the first day of training camp to the last game of the playoffs, so be sure to celebrate all the small (and big) successes along the way. In addition, teams with a championship culture even find ways to celebrate the positive things they did on the days that they lost. Those positives are an important reminder of what you can accomplish and prevent everyone from slipping into the negative mindset of beating themselves up when times are tough.
