Walking Together Forever As Champions

Kraken goalie Joey Daccord sat in a Düsseldorf hotel meeting room last April with two dozen other NHL players staring transfixed at the numbers “1933” projected on a video screen.

The first Team USA meeting in Germany ahead of the IIHF Men’s World Hockey Championship in May saw head coach Ryan Warsofsky give a PowerPoint presentation on various on-ice systems when a slide containing the numbers suddenly appeared. Others in the room with Daccord, including Kraken center Matty Beniers, watched silently as Warsofsky, who coaches the San Jose Sharks, asked the players whether they knew what “1933” meant.

“And we were like, ‘That’s the last time we won’,” Daccord said.

Beniers remembers how seeing the date hammered home a point. Sure, players already knew that generations had passed since the country’s only world title. And sure, an automatic world championship had been awarded to the U.S. in 1960 after winning the country’s first Winter Olympics gold, with the IIHF back then not holding a separate world tournament during Olympic years.

But to not win the actual tournament in nearly a century? Especially 45 years after the second Olympic gold “Miracle on Ice” at Lake Placid, followed by a World Cup of Hockey triumph in 1996, several world junior championships and countless American-born Hall of Famers and NHL stars?

Beniers, who’d won world juniors gold for the U.S. in 2021, felt seeing “1933” projected in black and white instantly had a jarring, almost galvanizing impact.

“I mean, it’s pretty unbelievable at first,” Beniers said. “Like seriously? We haven’t won this thing in 92 years? We’re supposed to be one of the best nations. It was a message to us. And it set the tone right away.”

Warsofsky didn’t have time to waste. Team USA’s lone exhibition game was against Germany days later, following a brief Düsseldorf training camp, and then it was off to Herning, Denmark, for a championship quest that had eluded this country for nine-plus decades.

Kraken equipment manager Jeff Camelio was also part of the American team, though not in the room for the initial meeting. Instead, the equipment staff was briefed on the country’s dismal tournament record by USA Hockey’s manager of operations Scott Aldrich and team general manager John Vanbiesbrouck, the longtime NHL goalie who’d played for the U.S. in four world championships.

“They did talk about how it had been 92 years since the last gold medal in this tournament,” Camelio said.

But the team didn’t dwell on it, he said. Instead, they knew the objective.

The journey saw key growth for Beniers and Daccord. Especially Daccord, who, unlike Beniers, had never represented his country. Daccord’s strong showing in the tournament’s early stages would eventually help secure an invitation this month to Team USA’s orientation camp ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Italy, next February.

Boston native Daccord had seen the “Miracle” movie about the 1980 Olympic gold in the theater as a boy. He’d dreamed of someday donning a “Team USA” jersey just like Boston-area Olympic hero netminder Jim Craig.

“I was pretty nervous and excited,” Daccord said as the tournament opener approached. “I just couldn’t wait to get on the ice.”

Neither Boston native Daccord, nor Beniers, from the suburb of Hingham, only 16 miles away, realized their own geographical connection to the prior 1933 world champions. Those gold medalists weren’t a national squad, but – as was common in that era -- a club team from Boston called the Massachusetts Rangers.

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If Daccord could channel himself back to the 1933 world championship in Prague, Czechoslovakia, he might have found a kindred spirit in Massachusetts Rangers goaltender Gerry Cosby. The Rangers were a 10-man squad, coached by Massachusetts hockey fixture Walter A. Brown and comprised almost entirely of a Boston Olympics team of college students.

But the Olympics changed their name to the Massachusetts Rangers for the tournament after adding two players, Jim Breckenridge and Stew Inglehart, both from New York. Team captain Ben Langmaid, a rugged defenseman, was one of the big stars, as was Yale University winger Winthrop “Ding” Palmer and Harvard forward John Garrison.

Larry Sanford, Channing Hilliard, Frank Holland and Sherman Forbes rounded out the squad. But it was goalie Cosby anchoring it all.

Cosby passed away at age 87 in 1996, but his son, Michael, 80, well remembers his father’s hockey tales.

“There were four games to play first before the championship, and he had shutouts in all of them,” he said of his father. “And then the fifth game was for the championship against Canada.”

But the Rangers almost never even made it to Prague. Like this year’s Team USA, they’d held a small training camp beforehand in Germany, at the Bavarian ski resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

But there’d been a prior stopover in Paris.

“They were in Paris and they trashed a hotel so badly that (coach) Walter (Brown) had to bail them out of jail,” Michael Cosby said.

The freed Rangers arrived for the weeklong 10-team tournament, played on Czechoslovakia’s first artificial ice rink in an outdoor, all-wooden Štvanice stadium opened just three months prior.

Their debut on Feb. 21, 1933, ended in a 7-0 victory over Switzerland. They blanked Poland 2-0 the following day. The real test came one day later against the undefeated host Czech team, boasting the tournament’s top scorer in Josef Malecek.

But the eventual bronze medalist Czechs were no match for the Rangers, who scored once in the first period and four more times in the second ahead of a 6-0 blowout. That put them in the semi-final against Austria after a day off, which did the Americans good as they scored twice in the first two periods for a 4-0 victory.

The Rangers were in the final with 21 goals scored, zero against. U.S. top scorer Palmer had nine goals, while defenseman Langmaid had four.

An American team making the championship game wasn’t that surprising. They’d won silver at the prior year’s Winter Olympics in Lake Placid – with Palmer and Garrison both on that squad -- and the year before that at the 1931 world championship, beaten out for gold by Canada both times.

And now, the U.S. would play another Canadian team, the Toronto National Sea Fleas coached by controversial future Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard. The Sea Fleas had gone undefeated, scoring 16 goals while allowing just one and beating the Czechs 4-0 in the semi-final.

“Canada never lost to anybody in those days,” Cosby’ son said.

But the U.S. nearly beaten them at the prior year’s Olympics, blowing two leads in a game that finished 2-2 and allowed Canada to claim gold on total points. Heading into the 1933 final, the Americans weren’t intimidated.

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The atmosphere as Daccord stood in his crease 92 years later, awaiting his own tournament opener in Herning against the host Denmark squad, could indeed be described as intimidating. This was the first time the Danish farming community, population 50,000, had co-hosted a major hockey event, with Stockholm, Sweden, doing the tournament’s other games.

And Herning’s populace was certainly up for the event, turning out 10,500 strong in packed Jyske Bank Boxen Arena.

“It was insane,” said Daccord, who’d earned the opening nod over goalie Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins. “I’d never played in an international, and it’s so much more like soccer. It was a European atmosphere with flags and drums and chanting and singing the whole time.

“And to get the opportunity to play wearing the “USA” jersey for the first time was quite emotional for me.”

For the fans as well. The world championship is revered by European hockey nations.

“You knew that for the Europeans, this is really their World Cup,” Kraken equipment manager Camelio said. “This is their version of a soccer World Cup. It’s not like in the U.S. and Canada, right? A lot of these guys play together all year long. So, it’s kind of a different vibe.”

For decades, the Soviet Union, Europe and Scandinavia didn’t have NHL players. The national squads sent to the world championship were their best, while Canada and the U.S. couldn’t send pros until the late 1970s. And even then, the NHLers were from teams that didn’t make the Stanley Cup Playoffs and often went over reluctantly.

European teams nowadays also add NHL ringers to rosters of players from various domestic pro leagues. Those stars have bolstered prior non-hockey powers such as Switzerland, silver medalists the last two years, with the likes of NHL mainstays Kevin Fiala, Nico Hischier, Nino Niederreiter, Timo Meier and Jonas Siegenthaler.

“This is a huge tournament for European teams,” Beniers said. “Even now, with the players they have in the NHL, once their season is over, they’re heading right to their world championship teams with no questions asked about whether they really want to go or not.

“That’s just what you do. You go play for your country. I think that’s cool of them. For us, that’s kind of a similar approach we had this year with players we had on our team.”

Team USA, captained by Zach Werenski, featured NHL talents such as Tage Thompson, Brady Skjei, Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, Cutter Gauthier and Connor Garland. Looking up at the rafters of the arena in Herning as their national anthem played, they’d have seen a banner with the retired number of Minnesota native Todd Bjorkstrand.

It was the onetime minor leaguer’s arrival in Herning in 1988 that made it the epicenter of Danish hockey. The father of former Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand became the Wayne Gretzky of pro hockey in Denmark as a star player for the Herning Blue Fox and later its version of Scotty Bowman as a championship coach.

His son and four other Herning players – sons of his own former coach and three of his teammates he’d helped lure there -- became the first Danish-raised NHLers.

Denmark’s inaugural international hockey foray at the 1949 world championship had seen a 47-0 loss to Canada. It would be more than 50 years before Denmark again competed in the tournament’s top bracket, a resurgence largely due to the elder Bjorkstrand. And now, Herning was hosting the world’s biggest annual international hockey showcase, meaning this opener was more than a hockey game.

And Denmark played that way, matching the Americans' energy-wise on the much larger European rink surface – 13 ½ feet wider than in the NHL. Daccord had to be alert throughout the opening period, stopping all nine shots faced before teammate Gauthier opened the scoring late in the frame.

“It’s just much wider, that’s the biggest difference,” Daccord said of the rink and covering his angles properly. “You have to be patient and let the play come to you, which can be hard at times.”

But Team USA figured things out by the second period, outshooting the home side 21-8 and getting an early Cooley goal. Midway through the period, Beniers turned the tide decisively by cleanly winning a faceoff, heading straight to the net and redirecting a shot by Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Andrew Peeke for a 3-0 lead.

The Americans scored midway through the third, and then Beniers capped a 5-0 win in the final minutes with a one-timed slapper from the high slot for his second goal of the game.

Just like goalie Cosby and their Team USA predecessors in 1933, Daccord and his squad had an opening shutout. Beniers was named U.S. Player of the Game.

Winning the opener was big, Beniers said, because the U.S. set aside the pro-Denmark crowd, early penalties and things that didn’t go their way. And they also beat an unexpectedly strong Danish team, one that would eventually shock the world by eliminating Canada to allow the U.S. to avoid facing its North American nemesis.

“There are a lot of little things that could bug you, whether it’s the ice size, or the calls because you’re playing in Europe,” Beniers said. “And we just decided to go out and play.”

Two days later, they did just that again in beating Hungary 6-0. As in 1933, the U.S. had opened with consecutive shutouts, this time behind goalie Swayman as he and Daccord alternated games early on.

The U.S. had some needed cushion ahead of tougher upcoming games. They were also embracing the small-town environment, playing their first seven tournament games in Herning and drawing huge crowds for each.

“It was fun, we had a blast,” Beniers said. “We’re in this tiny little town in Denmark, and it’s maybe not a huge hockey country, and then to have all those people come out to the games, it was just fun to see all those fans in the building.”

Camelio feels the prolonged stay in Herning brought the group of disparate NHL players closer together. “You’re in this small town and you don’t really know anybody, so the guys stuck close together,” he said. “They’d all head out to eat in a group and I think it really helped them get to know one another like a team.”

The small-town vibe could have its drawbacks, though. Team USA, in its third game, ran into a defensive wall against Switzerland and took a 3-0 afternoon loss. That evening, the U.S. players left their hotel in search of a place to eat.

“And we get to the main street and it’s filled with all Switzerland fans,” Beniers said. “So, we walk down the street and they start cheering these chants and clapping and thanking us. It was pretty cool they cared that much to be out there, but obviously pretty demoralizing for us in that moment.”

And a lesson to not take any team lightly, especially a Swiss squad that had lost the gold medal to Czechia the prior year.

“They have guys that can skate and know how to play on a big rink,” said Daccord, named U.S. Player of the Game for stopping 24 of 27 shots. “We just couldn’t find a way to break through their defensive structure. It’s just a different game on that rink and it took us a bit of time to get adjusted to that.”

Camelio said it was obvious the Swiss, despite a handful of NHL stars, had been together longer in the country’s domestic league and were more used to their respective styles of play.

“They had four or five NHL players on their team but they competed with us, and we had 23 NHL players,” Camelio said. “But they knew each other. They all play together all year.”

It was something the U.S. needed to come to terms with as the tournament progressed. And they did, surviving a late scare and beating Norway 6-5 on the first of two overtime goals Buffalo Sabres star Thompson would score in the tournament.

The next game was Daccord’s final start in net, beating Kraken teammate Philipp Grubauer and Germany 6-3. “We were up 3-0 and then the next thing I know, it’s 3-3,” Daccord said. “But we battled back and found a way to win. So, that was a big win for us. It was cool to see our team be so resilient and fight back.”

Swayman would start the remainder of Team USA’s games, beating Kazakhstan 6-1 and defending champion Czechia 5-2 to end the Herning portion of the tournament and advance to the playoffs in Stockholm.

In the quarter-final, the U.S. trailed Eeli Tolvanen and Finland 2-1 in the second period when Beniers fired a puck at the net during a power play. The rebound was slotted home by Zeev Buium to tie the game, with Beniers drawing the assist.

“He was doing his thing and he played great,” Daccord said of Beniers’ confidence level as the tournament progressed. “He’s a special player and it’s fun to watch what he does in Seattle and on the big stage playing for Team USA. He was a big part of our team having success.”

Team USA took the lead for good late in that second period before pulling away for a 5-2 victory.

Beniers agreed his prior play internationally with the U.S. National Team Development Program helped familiarize him with global competition and the team itself.

“You get to the world championship and you know all the training staff, you know all the equipment guys and (GM) Vanbiesbrouck,” Beniers said. “So, I think that provides a level of comfort to where you’re not walking in without knowing anybody this time around.”

And that familiarity, he added, helps get a jump in a tournament such as this one.

“It feels long but it ramps up pretty quickly,” he said. “You’ve got to be ready to go pretty quickly as an individual and as a team.”

And Team USA would need to be ramped up for its semifinal: Facing host country Sweden and 12,530 rabid fans in Stockholm.

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Nine decades prior, the Massachusetts Rangers headed into the gold medal game against the Toronto National Sea Fleas on Feb. 27, 1933, knowing Canadian teams had never lost a game in world championship or Olympic play. They’d captured the standalone tournament in 1930 and 1931 as well as Olympic gold and de facto world champion status in 1920, 1924, 1928 and 1932.

But it didn’t take long for the Massachusetts side to serve notice on a cool, gray day in front of a capacity crowd of 10,000. The date itself was already destined for history as just 220 miles across the border to the northwest, in the German capital of Berlin, the infamous Reichstag Fire would take place later that night – begetting Adolf Hitler’s immediate suspension of democratic freedoms and eventually paving the way for World War II and Germany’s brutal occupation of its Czech neighbor.

Hours before that, the most pressing international issue for Rangers players was scoring on Canadian netminder Ron Geddes, who’d allowed one goal all tournament long. And score they did, with Forbes putting the puck behind Geddes just four minutes in for a 1-0 lead.

The Sea Fleas pressed furiously for the equalizer, only to be stymied by goaltender Gerry Cosby. But right at the end of the first of three 15-minute periods, Gord Kerr scored the first goal by anybody against Cosby in the tournament.

It stayed 1-1 through regulation, with Cosby repeatedly turning away determined Canadian attackers. That prompted a 10-minute, non-sudden death overtime.

Six minutes into that extra session, fans shivering with anticipation in the stands, Garrison scored an unassisted beauty on Geddes to put the U.S. in front. But it wasn’t over yet.

They frantically held off the Sea Fleas those final four minutes, with defenseman Langmaid’s crushing hits valiantly thwarting Canadian rushes and Cosby denying anybody who made it behind the defenders. Finally, it ended: For the first time in international hockey history, an American team had emerged triumphant.

“What they did was really historic on all kinds of levels,” Cosby’s son, Michael, said. “But I don’t think anyone believed it would take so long for the U.S. to win it again.”

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To reach their own championship game, modern-day Team USA needed to beat host Sweden in front of a raucous Stockholm crowd. The Americans now had their families with them, many having flown over for the Finland quarterfinal but now especially with Team USA one win away from being guaranteed a medal.

Kraken equipment manager Camelio’s wife, Michelle, had joined him for the final tournament games in Denmark along with their son, Anthony, a Kraken assistant equipment manager and daughter Carli. Beniers’ mother, father and girlfriend joined him in Stockholm, as did Daccord’s parents and brother.

They were easy to spot in the stands amidst a sea of Swedish semifinal supporters.

“You go in there as the enemy and everyone in the building is kind of against you,” Daccord said.

Beniers agreed the arena “was pretty packed” with Swedish fans and only a few U.S. jerseys.

“But it didn’t matter,” he said.

The Americans were ready, having grown tremendously as a team following their loss to Switzerland and the scares against Norway and Germany. Skjei and Gauthier scored in a first period that saw the U.S. dominate 13-3 in shots.

Garland upped the lead in the second period and then Beniers set up former Kraken teammate Mikey Eyssimont to make it 4-0. Sweden popped a pair of third period goals, but the U.S. matched that and cruised to a 6-2 win.

“I thought we just outplayed them from the first shift all the way through until the end,” Beniers said. “Especially in that first period. It was just such great team hockey.”

Trainer Camelio’s favorite part of the tournament to that point had been the exhibition game in Germany and realizing his lifelong dream of working for Team USA. But now, in the celebratory postgame locker room, it dawned on him that this was another lifetime moment.

“I realized ‘OK, I’m going home with a medal of some color,’” he said.

Stockholm had been a blur for him, getting equipment moved over from Denmark and working day and night as the team prepped for playoff games. Another of his contributions was making a special Johnny Gaudreau wool hat to hand out to players of the game in honor of the former Blue Jackets star killed last year with his brother when struck by a drunk driver while cycling.

“A coach was like ‘I want to do something for Johnny -- a hat,’” Camelio said. “And so, I talked to our (Kraken) jersey crester here and we were able to take the USA shield and put his number in it. Then, we were able to pull his autograph and embroider it in.”

The hats and emotions surrounding Gaudreau, who had several friends on Team USA, only added to the squad’s intensity and focus ahead of their shot at history. Their gold medal game opponent? The Swiss team that had blanked them 3-0 for their only tournament defeat.

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They say champions walk together forever regardless of divergent paths in their remaining lives. And the paths of stars from that prior 1933 championship team certainly differed.

Head coach Brown became owner of the Boston Bruins in 1951 and was a founding owner of the Boston Celtics in 1950 – watching that team win six NBA championships in seven years before his death in 1964 at age 59. The NBA nicknamed its annual championship trophy after Brown from the time of his death through 1976.

Brown was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1962, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1965 and the IIHF Hall of Fame in 1997. The Walter Brown award is today given annually to the best college hockey player in New England.

Top-scorer Palmer, one of Yale University’s all-time hockey greats, was inducted posthumously into the inaugural U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Class in 1973. He never competed internationally again after the 1933 victory, instead playing amateur hockey for the legendary St. Nicholas Hockey Club in New York before settling down near Yale’s campus in Connecticut and working as a stockbroker until his death in 1970 at age 63.

As for overtime goal scorer Garrison, who died in 1988 at age 79, he opted against pro hockey and pursued a business career. He played for a bronze medalist U.S. team at the 1936 Winter Olympics and coached the squad at the 1948 Games ahead of U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame induction in 1973.

Star defenseman Langmaid, who’d delivered punishing hits not only as a hockey player, but also as a football captain at Williams College, didn’t fare so well. He was found dead in November 1938 at age 29 of a rifle blast to his forehead in the front seat of his car on a lonely road in Shelborn, Mass. in what was later ruled a suicide. His wife was six months pregnant.

Chilean-born forward Inglehart, one of the two New Yorkers on the Rangers, had also been a two-sport star, becoming the first American to represent this country internationally in not only hockey but polo as well. Inglehart was one of the only men in polo at the time to achieve a 10-goal rating, the highest attainable skill level reserved for the world’s best players.

He played pro hockey for the New York Rovers, the farm team for the New York Rangers in a then-six-team NHL. Inglehart was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1975.

He died in 1993 at age 83, but Michael Cosby remembers him well.

“He was my godfather,” he said.

Cosby’s dad goaltended for the Rovers in the mid-1940s and was a New York Rangers practice netminder as well but never made the NHL. After hockey, he founded Gerry Cosby & Co. Inc., a sporting goods company located up the street from Madison Square Garden and eventually used by pro and collegiate teams nationwide.

The company relocated inside the MSG concourse after the arena was rebuilt at a new location in 1967. Cosby remained active in the company through his death in 1996, after which his son took it over.

The company kept its MSG location until the COVID-19 pandemic, when it became an online-only retailer.

A teammate of Cosby’s on those Rovers squads was onetime Seattle Ironmen defender Fred Shero, who by the mid-1970s was coaching the “Broad Street Bullies” Philadelphia Flyers to consecutive Stanley Cups when the pair met up outside the team’s locker room at The Spectrum.

“He dragged my father into the locker room in front of Bobby Clarke and all those guys and he says ‘Listen! Quiet up! I want to introduce you guys to the greatest goaltender in United States history,’ ” Michael Cosby said. “My father turned red. He was so embarrassed.”

Gerry Cosby also served as official scorer when Team USA won its first Olympic gold medal in 1960 at Squaw Valley, California – a gig facilitated by Brown, his former coach. He formed a lifelong friendship with Team USA star Bill Christian from Minnesota and their families remain close.

“He loved hockey and he loved sports and the people he met along the way,” Michael Cosby said of his father. “And that championship in 1933 was something he really cherished. He’d be happy to know another U.S. team finally won it.”

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One opponent stood between the modern-day Team USA players and their own chance to walk together forever. Switzerland had demolished the fairy-tale Danish side 7-0 in front of its home fans in the other semifinal in Herning.

Now, they’d play a U.S. squad they’d also blanked on their way to allowing just nine goals against in 10 tournament games. For the Americans, ending their 92-year drought wouldn’t be easy.

“I get nervous during big games,” Camelio said. “I just want everything to go well, and I want to win. So, I’m sure the guys were, really, less nervous than I was.”

That might have been true.

Beniers said the U.S. squad was confident they’d prevail, even as a scoreless championship game ticked towards conclusion. Like the 1933 final, where each team scored just once in regulation against netminders barely allowing anything all tournament, this gold medal game always seemed destined for overtime.

Beniers said with everything Team USA had been through, it knew it was better than the last time they’d played Switzerland. And that confidence lingered, he said, even after failing to score on the Swiss for 120 consecutive tournament minutes.

“I don’t really think there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that we weren’t winning that game,” Beniers said. “Even when it went to overtime, the feeling in the room was, ‘We have this game.’”

Just two minutes into the first sudden-death session ever in the tournament’s gold medal game, Thompson snapped home a shot from the right faceoff circle.

“I just immediately jumped off the bench and threw my gloves,” Beniers said.

Equipment manager Camelio immediately leaped into the arms of Chad Walker, medical staffer for the Anaheim Ducks. “And then we all bum rushed the coaches after that,” he said.

A nine-plus decade streak of futility had ended. The victorious Americans celebrated through the night with family and friends back at the team hotel. Most would catch the first flight home the next morning. For Camelio and the hardworking equipment staff, the celebration was even more fleeting.

“We celebrated at the rink, yeah, but after the medal ceremonies and skating around with the trophy the guys were out of there pretty quick,” he said. “We had to stay and bundle things up and get everything shipped out.”

It wasn’t until 4 a.m. that Camelio arrived back at the team hotel, greeted by his wife waiting for him in the lobby. Rather than go to bed, they went out for a walk together in a land where the sun stays out most of the night that time of year.

“We ended up walking around the city of Stockholm, with the sunrise around the old town,” he said. “Just the two of us and the gold medal. It was pretty cool.”

As it was for Beniers and Daccord once the enormity of their accomplishment sank in.

“We were in the hotel lobby, and all the parents were there, and coaches, parents and cousins and friends and girlfriends,” Beniers said. “You just kind of had the whole mosh pit of a mob in celebration. We went upstairs after, had some food, had some drinks with everyone. It was, it was a pretty, pretty fun night.”

Daccord hadn’t previously known of the Massachusetts tie-in between victors 92 years apart. But now, he said, it all fits together.

“The expectation when we were there was that we were going to make history,” he said. “It’s funny thinking about that initial meeting, the ‘1933’ date on the screen and then going to the tournament and doing it.

“Looking back on it, we said we were going there to win it. And everything we set out to do, we did. So, it was an incredible experience.”

One that, as with their 1933 forebearers, they’ll remain forever linked to.