Lindsay Czarniak was whispering to her producer through her earpiece, trying not to let Angela Ruggiero hear her. The United States women\u2019s hockey team was trailing Canada with two minutes left in the gold medal game, and Czarniak needed to figure out how this was going to work. In a few moments, they\u2019d go live, and she\u2019d have to ask Ruggiero \u2014 who won gold with Team USA in 1998 \u2014 what it felt like to watch the next generation lose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m like, oh dear God, we\u2019re gonna have to go on, and I\u2019m gonna have to be asking her about Canada winning the gold medal,\u201d Czarniak told Awful Announcing in a recent phone interview. \u201cI know that she was gonna be good with what she said, but I\u2019m like, that sucks, you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Hilary Knight tied it<\/a> with 2:04 left. Everything changed. The game went to overtime, and Czarniak had a few minutes to completely recalibrate what she was going to say and how she was going to say it. Megan Keller scored<\/a> 4:09 into the extra period. Gold. Ruggiero\u2019s phone started blowing up with messages from her 1998 teammates, all of them texting at once, watching the next generation pull off what they\u2019d done 28 years earlier. And Czarniak had about 10 seconds to merge the natural questions bubbling up in her head with the structured plan they\u2019d prepared before the red light came on.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I had so many just natural questions that I wanted to ask her from being in that moment with her,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cBut we obviously had the plan of what we thought we were gonna hit on with her based on the video that we know we had and the moments that played out in the game. And it was just super exciting, and then it was over before you know it, and she\u2019s off on a plane to Milan, and I\u2019m like, oh no, we have the rest of the show.\u201d<\/p>\n That moment \u2014 sitting in the Stamford studio next to Ruggiero, watching her process the U.S. winning gold while texting with her old teammates, having to pivot from preparing for a loss to celebrating victory in seconds \u2014 captured what made the Milan Cortina Olympics<\/a> different for Lindsay Czarniak. She\u2019s been part of NBC\u2019s Olympic coverage<\/a> on and off since 2006, but something about these Games felt more human, more raw, more willing to show the messy reality of what it takes to perform under that kind of pressure.<\/p>\n The women\u2019s hockey gold medal game wasn\u2019t even the only dramatic overtime finish Czarniak experienced during the Olympics. Four days later, on the final Sunday of the Games, the men\u2019s team played Canada for gold in a game that mirrored the women\u2019s final almost identically. The game was tied 1-1 after regulation before Jack Hughes scored<\/a> in overtime, giving the United States its first men\u2019s hockey gold since 1980. Czarniak\u2019s USA Network team<\/a> was one of the only shows still broadcasting that day, and they were in their production meeting when the overtime goal was scored.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were all watching, and we watched it down to the final second, and like there were tears,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cIt was just so exciting to be able to watch it and watch it with all of them because we were sort of all invested in this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Those two hockey games \u2014 sitting next to Ruggiero as the women won gold, watching with her production team as the men did the same \u2014 captured what stuck with Czarniak about Milan Cortina. The people mattered as much as the competition. The crew that came together from different parts of NBC Sports for two-and-a-half weeks, some of whom would never see each other again.<\/p>\n Working alongside analysts who\u2019d lived these moments helped Czarniak understand what she was watching in ways she never had before. Ashley Wagner was calling figure skating coverage alongside her when Ilia Malinin collapsed in the men\u2019s free skate. Malinin was the only person in the world who could land multiple quadruple Axels. He\u2019d dominated all season. All he needed was a decent performance to win gold. Instead, he botched multiple jumps<\/a> and fell to eighth place in one of the most shocking moments of the entire Games.<\/p>\n Wagner had competed in Sochi in 2014, and she\u2019d lived through the pressure Malinin was experiencing. She explained to Czarniak what was happening as it was happening. Malinin couldn\u2019t have been more prepared, Wagner said. He came in confident. But at some point during his program, something switched. He started letting things in, whether it was pressure, social media, expectations, or just the weight of being the overwhelming favorite.<\/p>\n Then Wagner shared her own story. She told Czarniak about a competition where her legs froze. She literally couldn\u2019t move because of the anxiety building up in her body. Her coach recognized what was happening and decided to teach her how to skate through it. He pushed her to maximum exhaustion in practice, to the point where she\u2019d feel that same paralysis again, so she\u2019d know what to do when it happened in competition.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, this is so fascinating to me that these athletes are wired so differently, and they do have such a different amount of pressure now because it comes at them from different ways,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cIt just highlights how they\u2019re all also human, but at the same time, it highlights how they\u2019re also kind of superhuman, and that they can flip a switch back and pull, they can get their shit together, unlike anyone else can.\u201d<\/p>\n The conversation stuck with Czarniak because it explained something she\u2019d been noticing throughout the Olympics. The pressure these athletes face is fundamentally different than what previous generations dealt with. Michael Jordan never had to play with thousands of people analyzing his every move on social media. These athletes are getting it from angles that didn\u2019t exist 20 or 30 years ago. But they\u2019re also more willing to talk about struggling with it, which creates richer storytelling<\/a> but also opens them up to even more noise they somehow have to block out.<\/p>\n Malinin did the required NBC Sports interview<\/a> after his eighth-place finish. He posted a couple of days later about what he was going to perform<\/a> for his exhibition skate. Alysa Liu talked openly<\/a> about taking time away from skating before deciding to come back despite people telling her she was crazy. Mikaela Shiffrin came back from a disappointing performance in Beijing<\/a> and proved what it takes to rebound from public failure.<\/p>\n The vulnerability was everywhere at Milan Cortina, and it made the Games feel different than any Olympics Czarniak had covered before.<\/p>\n \u201cI really did feel that it was more noticeable,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cAnd I do think that maybe part of that is the openness that some athletes had to talk about their pressure, insecurities. I\u2019ve been seeing like Ed Sheeran posted something about no one talks about failure and how important that is, because how many times people who have achieved the highest level have really failed.\u201d<\/p>\n That openness has created what Czarniak described as a crossroads moment for sports journalism. Athletes now control their own narratives to some extent through Instagram and TikTok, sharing what they want, when they want. But there\u2019s still a need for traditional interviews that can dig deeper than what shows up in a social media post and ask the questions athletes might not think to answer on their own.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very interesting time for journalism, because it\u2019s like this crossroads,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cIt\u2019s like this morphing of traditional journalism and very much none, so like, where are we landing?\u201d<\/p>\n Czarniak has worked NBC\u2019s Olympics coverage as a correspondent in Torino in 2006, hosted desk shows in Beijing in 2008, stepped away from ESPN for 13 years, then returned for Beijing in 2022. She\u2019s seen the evolution of how the Games are covered and consumed. The favorable time zone in Milan \u2014 six hours ahead of Eastern Time \u2014 meant she was covering events live as they happened rather than wrapping up tape-delayed coverage. When you\u2019re elevated, and the stakes are as high as they are at the Olympics, she said, it adds this element of giddiness and excitement and feeling like you\u2019re going to throw up all at once.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just allows you to flow,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cIn those moments where you\u2019re calling something or you\u2019re part of watching what is a gold medal game or moment, that\u2019s what it feels like from my perspective as a broadcaster. It\u2019s just fun. It\u2019s just like pure fun and adrenaline.\u201d<\/p>\n Flow was the word that kept coming up. Ruggiero talked about it. TJ Oshie \u2014 who worked as an analyst on men\u2019s hockey coverage after retiring from the NHL \u2014 talked about it. When you\u2019re in flow with what you\u2019re doing, it feels like you\u2019re skating on top of it. The pressure doesn\u2019t disappear, but it becomes manageable, almost easy.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what Czarniak saw throughout Milan Cortina. Athletes are in flow even when facing the biggest moments of their lives. Analysts who\u2019d lived those moments explaining what\u2019s actually going through your head when everyone watching thinks it\u2019s over. Production teams watching gold medal games together and crying when Jack Hughes scored in overtime. All of it added up to something Czarniak struggled to fully articulate even weeks later.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019re all walking out of here today, and there are some of us will never see each other again, probably,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cBut it\u2019s like you were this part of this really special 2.5-week period where it\u2019s like you can\u2019t recreate that because of the emotions that go along with it. It\u2019s like there are highs and there are lows of the actual events that you\u2019re covering, and that in itself is unique because it\u2019s like a constant, consistent championship type of event.\u201d<\/p>\n The Olympics ended weeks ago. Czarniak is back covering the Big East Tournament for NBC Sports now, back to the regular rhythm of the season. But Milan Cortina won\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I do it, I kind of realize again, like it really is such a big part of the job and also the excitement of the job, the people that you\u2019re with,\u201d Czarniak said. \u201cSo that\u2019s always been on my radar with it because it\u2019s really special.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n And sometimes the most special moments are the hardest to put into words. You just had to be there in the Stamford studio with Ruggiero when Megan Keller scored, or in the production meeting when Jack Hughes beat Canada. You had to feel it to understand it. And for two-and-a-half weeks in February and March, Lindsay Czarniak felt all of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lindsay Czarniak was whispering to her producer through her earpiece, trying not to let Angela Ruggiero hear her.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[25774,58835,58836,5,58837,58838,58839],"class_list":{"0":"post-497995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-2026-milan-olympics","9":"tag-angela-ruggiero","10":"tag-ashley-wagner","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-lindsay-czarniak","13":"tag-nbc-olympics-coverage","14":"tag-usa-network-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116210241037703767","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497995","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=497995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}