CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2013 Aidan Miller knows a little bit about what the boys in red, white and blue were feeling on that sheet of ice in Italy.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s worn those three letters \u2013 U.S.A. \u2014 across his chest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been on both sides,\u201d the precocious 21-year-old Phillies prospect said moments after Team USA\u2019s dramatic overtime win over Canada in Sunday\u2019s men\u2019s Olympic gold medal hockey game. \u201cWinning gold is the greatest feeling in the world. You can\u2019t even describe it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s international experience admittedly came on a smaller scale, in the USA Baseball program. But it was still special, still memorable. He won a gold medal at the 15U World Cup event in 2019. Three years earlier, he was on the team that won the silver medal.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gold medal is hanging in my mother\u2019s house,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t even know where the silver medal is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S.-Canada gold medal game captivated Phillies camp Sunday. The time difference between Italy and Florida cooperated nicely. The game started a little after 8 a.m. EST, just as Phillies players were going through their morning clubhouse routines before the spring home opener against Pittsburgh later in the day.<\/p>\n
Phillies players sat in front of their lockers and on clubhouse couches, glued to the action on the big screen TV in the middle of the room.<\/p>\n
Out on the field at BayCare Ballpark, the game was shown on the giant, new, 3,200-square-foot video board, the largest at any spring-training venue in baseball, as Phillies hitters took batting practice.<\/p>\n
Miller has been undergoing treatment for a sore lower back \u2013 it\u2019s just a minor thing, manager Rob Thomson said \u2013 so he did not take part in batting practice. The left-side infielder is the top-rated prospect in the Phillies system \u2013 and a big hockey guy. He watched every game Team USA played at the Olympics. He anxiously watched the first period of Sunday\u2019s final in the clubhouse, then moved around, catching the action in the athletic trainer\u2019s room and the weight room.<\/p>\n
He was back in the clubhouse when Jack Hughes scored the golden goal in overtime, giving the U.S. just their third men\u2019s hockey gold medal and first since the 1980 Miracle on Ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepresenting your country and winning gold \u2014 you can\u2019t even describe it,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIt\u2019s the coolest thing. Jack Hughes talked about it in his interview after the game. It\u2019s like you\u2019re only with those guys for two or three weeks and you form such a brotherhood. The feeling is unmatched. Just putting the gold medal on your chest is awesome.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could tell how excited (Hughes) was. He\u2019s usually calm and collected in his interviews but the emotions were so high. That\u2019s the feeling you get when you win gold. You\u2019re only there to win gold. You could see the Canadians getting their silver medals — they didn\u2019t seem too happy even though finishing second is a pretty cool accomplishment. But everybody there wants to win gold, and, being for the USA, I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who knew Miller, a Floridian who grew up just a few miles from the Phillies\u2019 spring-training headquarters, was such a big puck head?<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s such a fun sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s dad, Jason, was raised near hockey hotbed Plattsburg, N.Y., and the Canadian border. As a kid, Jason was a goalie. He introduced his boys, Jackson and Aidan, to the game and they played as youngsters. They still get on the ice for a little stick-n-puck during the winter. Aidan also attends about 20 Tampa Bay Lightning games per season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good way to stay in shape,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s great cardio. You understand why their shift times are so short when you\u2019re actually out there skating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller wasn\u2019t the only Phillie who watched the gold medal game closely. Bryce Harper, who, like Miller, wore U.S.A. on his chest as a teenager, was also thrilled with the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncredible,\u201d Harper said during an in-game interview with Tom McCarthy and Ruben Amaro Jr., on the NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcast. \u201cWhat a game. So fun to watch. I\u2019m so proud to be an American and so happy they were able to take over the hockey world for at least three more years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Schwarber admitted he does not watch a lot of hockey, but he made sure to catch this one. He was not disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cSo exciting. That will probably get me to watch a lot more. Right from the get go, it felt like they were skating two or three times what they normally do. That shows you how intense that moment was for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper and Schwarber will soon be wearing red, white and blue. They will join Team USA next weekend for the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Team USA will play its first game March 6. It will be Harper\u2019s first time playing in the event. Schwarber played for Team USA in the last WBC in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they asked me again, it was a no-brainer,\u201d he said. \u201cThey could ask me when I\u2019m 50 and I\u2019d say yes. I might be playing softball by then, but I\u2019d say yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team USA lost a dramatic final to Team Japan in 2023. The climactic moment came in a battle of superstars, Shohei Ohtani striking out Mike Trout for the final out of the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was kind of the movie part where you\u2019re sitting on the rail and taking it all in, two of the best going at it,\u201d Schwarber said. \u201cYou just sit there and you\u2019re like, \u2018Wow, this is pretty cool.\u2019 I just remember going into the whole experience being starstruck. And the moment at the end was all encapsulating. You were like, \u2018Wow, this is a great experience.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
As memorable as the experience was, Schwarber still has a lingering sour taste in his mouth over the final outcome. In fact, he doesn\u2019t even know where his silver medal is. He went there for gold. He hopes to get it this time around. Just like the Boys of Winter did Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we\u2019re not Olympians,\u201d Schwarber said. \u201cBut this is our time to represent our country. What those guys did gives you that motivation.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2013 Aidan Miller knows a little bit about what the boys in red, white and blue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,16702],"class_list":{"0":"post-587406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies","14":"tag-phillies-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116116921395292770","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}