Some US journalists belittle the long-awaited victory of Russia in hockey at the Olympics, while others, on the contrary, glorify and consider this to be the most memorable event. Edition ESPN published a list of highlights from the past Games. The rating included our hockey players, who defeated the Germans from the accounts 4: 3 in the finals. Journalists believe that the athletes were attracted a lot of attention because of the ban of the Russian flag and anthem, as well as the removal of the leaders of the national team. The edition once again emphasizes that the athletes performed the national anthem, despite the IOC ban, however, unlike their colleagues, they did not demand punishment for this. Earlier, the newspaper New York Post devoted an article to Russians under the heading "A team without a country won hockey gold", which caused a storm of resentment on the web.

Later, journalists demanded to impose sanctions on athletes because of the performance of the anthem.

At the same time, the IOC considered that this was nothing criminal, since the athletes were overexcited because of the long-awaited medal. In the last match of the group stage, the Russian team defeated hockey players from the United States with a score of 4: 0 and reached the playoffs from the first place in Group B. Then were defeated Norway (6: 1), Czech Republic (3: 0) and, finally, in the finals - Germany (4: 3 in overtime).