by winning Olympic gold in the 2-1 U.S. overtime win <\/a>against Canada. \u201cI\u2019m sure I\u2019ve got a message from him already. To soak that in, it means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\nAs has been well chronicled, Nelson is the third generation of his family to represent Team USA in men\u2019s hockey at the Olympics. <\/p>\n
His great-uncle Gordon played in 1956 in Cortina; Bill Christian and Brock\u2019s great-uncle Roger Christian won gold in Squaw Valley in 1960; and Brock\u2019s uncle Dave Christian was part of the Miracle on Ice in 1980.<\/p>\n
Brock Nelson (r.) celebrates with Charlie McAvoy during the Feb. 22 gold-medal game. REUTERS<\/p>\n
For so long, it looked all but impossible that Brock would join them.<\/p>\n
The NHL skipped the Olympics in 2018 and 2022, and truth be told, Nelson likely wouldn\u2019t have been in the conversation for those teams even if they had gone. <\/p>\n
His career bloomed late: 2021-22 was his first 30-goal season with the Islanders. <\/p>\n
Dave Christian is pictured during Team USA\u2019s game against the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics. Sports Illustrated via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Since then, hitting the number has become practically an annual occurrence, and he\u2019s already on 29 with the Avalanche this year through 55 games.<\/p>\n
Making the 4 Nations Face-Off a year ago came down to the wire. <\/p>\n
But this year, given what Nelson showed he could do as a two-way player with Team USA, there was never much question about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a family member in \u201960, a family member on \u201980,\u201d Charlie McAvoy said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t gonna win this without [the] Nelson family tree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brock Nelson celebrates with his family after USA defeated Canada in the gold-medal game Feb. 22. Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Nelson ended up with a huge role to play in this tournament, helping key a penalty kill that went a perfect 18-for-18 while contributing two goals and an assist across six games. <\/p>\n
Even better, he did it with his uncle in attendance.<\/p>\n
Brock Nelson shoots the puck during Team USA\u2019s win over Canada in the Feb. 22 gold-medal game. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI just [told him] we did it,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cCrazy. What is it, 46 years to the day?\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, the Miracle on Ice was 46 years ago, exactly on Sunday, and 66 years from when Team USA opened its 1960 Olympics with a win over Sweden.<\/p>\n
2026 WINTER OLYMPICS<\/p>\n
Nelson has said over the years that he never quite understood the magnitude of his uncle\u2019s achievements until watching \u201cMiracle.\u201d <\/p>\n
This, you can safely assume, he had an immediate grasp on.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think about it, when you\u2019re watching as a kid, I\u2019m sure this is going to be a moment that younger kids are talking about,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cTo see Jack [Hughes] score that OT winner and they\u2019ll try to recreate, to envision themselves in that spot. Hopefully [it] keeps the sport [moving] the way it\u2019s been going the last 10, 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014 Brock Nelson didn\u2019t call his grandfather while he was in Italy with Team USA. The time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5110],"tags":[1034,5,122,3328,159,5190,5189,4,2602,43,2787,31286],"class_list":{"0":"post-467625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-islanders","8":"tag-brock-nelson","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-islanders","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-islanders","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkislanders","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-olympics","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-winter-olympics","19":"tag-winter-olympics-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116117566214643765","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}