U.S. World Juniors coach Carle inspired by ‘Miracle on Ice’ 

The 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship is scheduled in Gothenburg, Sweden, from Dec. 26-Jan. 5. Today, a look at United States coach David Carle:

PLYMOUTH, Mich. -- David Carle is too young to remember the “Miracle on Ice.” The United States upset the Soviet Union 4-3 at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics nine years before he was born.

Yet he has seen the moment countless times. He can hear it in his head.

“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

Growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, Carle and his brother Matt had a VHS tape of the game. Their parents would let them play it on the television in their bedroom, and they would fall asleep to it each night.

Fast forward to today. Carle is coaching the United States at the 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden, leading a national team for the first time. The United States opens against Norway on Tuesday (11 a.m. ET; NHLN, TSN).

Carle still has the tape. He said he debated bringing it to the World Junior selection camp at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Michigan, from Dec. 14-16, but he left it at home, because he figured he wouldn’t be able to play it on anything.

“Yeah, listening to Al Michaels’ call …” Carle said, his voice drifting off, as if replaying the tape in his mind. “We would watch that going to bed. …

“It doesn’t matter when you see it or hear it. It just gives you chills. I don’t know. Makes you proud. As a hockey player, it’s like the pinnacle moment for our country and makes you really proud to be an American.”

So what does coaching the United States mean to Carle?

“When I get asked the question, I guess I just think about the little kid in Anchorage, Alaska,” Carle said. “Would I have ever dreamed or thought of ever having the opportunity as a player or as a coach to wear our colors? No. It’s just so out there. It’s so big of an idea at that age.”

Carle had no idea what was to come, either -- how a heart problem would end his playing career at 18, when he was an NHL prospect and might have had a chance to play for the United States at World Juniors, and how he’d rise quickly as a coach afterward, leading the University of Denver to an NCAA men’s hockey title in 2022.

“Sure, it’s a dream, but it’s hard to even think that it could become a reality, so the fact that it is, yeah, it means a lot,” the 34-year-old said. “I guess that’s what I think about, is just the small town that I came from and all the people that helped me and my brothers and our family, all those things.

“It’s an amazing opportunity and one that means a lot to us.”

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Carle is old enough to remember the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. He was 6 when the United States defeated Canada 5-2 in Game 3 of the best-of-3 final to win the tournament. It was the country’s first best-on-best title since 1980 and remains its last.

“That was a joy to watch,” Carle said. “We grew up very American in our family and proud of our country.”

David watched Matt represent the United States several times. Five years older, Matt played for USA Hockey’s National Team Development program from 2000-02 and for multiple national teams in his career, including the one that won the country’s first gold medal at World Juniors, in 2004.

Selected in the second round (No. 47) of the 2003 NHL Draft by the San Jose Sharks, the defenseman played 730 NHL games for the Sharks, Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning and Nashville Predators from 2005-17.

David got to represent the United States once as a player, at the 2006 Hlinka Gretzky Cup tournament, losing to Canada 3-0 in the final.

The defenseman was at the 2008 NHL Combine when an EKG caught his heart problem. The diagnosis: hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The walls of the left ventricle, the main pumping chamber, were thick and stiff.

“That would have been my summer to potentially make the World Junior team,” he said. “Was I on their radar? I don’t really know that. I assume so.”

The Lightning still selected Carle in the seventh round (No. 203) of the 2008 NHL Draft, but his playing career was over. Recruited to play at the University of Denver, he served as a student assistant coach there instead from 2008-12. He was a video coach for the United States at a Five Nations tournament once during that span.

He spent 1½ seasons as an assistant with Green Bay of the United States Hockey League, then returned to Denver as an assistant Jan. 1, 2014. In 4½ seasons under coach Jim Montgomery, he helped his alma mater make the NCAA tournament five times, advance to the Frozen Four twice and win the NCAA title in 2017.

Three weeks after Montgomery left to coach the Dallas Stars on May 4, 2018, Carle was named his successor. At 28, he was the youngest coach in NCAA Division I men’s hockey. Since then, he has led Denver to the NCAA tournament four times, to the Frozen Four twice and the NCAA title in 2022.

Montgomery, now coach of the Boston Bruins, praised Carle’s vision and emotional intelligence when asked what made him a good fit to lead the United States at the WJC.

“He’s really, really good at keeping his emotions in check and also being able to teach … with players knowing that he’s trying to make them better,” Montgomery said.

Montgomery cited two examples from the 2017 NCAA title game. Denver and Minnesota-Duluth were tied 0-0 after the first period, and Montgomery asked Carle for his thoughts on adjustments.

“He said, ‘I think we just need to go north with the puck in the neutral zone. I think we just need to get in behind them,’” Montgomery said. “And that’s what we did, and we got two goals because of it.”

Denver took a 2-0 lead in the second and went on to win 3-2.

“I said, ‘Any time I’m getting a little bit too loud or negative behind the bench, grab me and let me know,’” Montgomery said. “And I remember in the national championship game, he grabbed me at one point and was like, ‘We got this. We’re in good shape.’ That’s his ability to read the situation, his awareness, and apply it.”

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You might think Carle is a good age to coach in college and at the World Juniors, young enough to relate to the players, old enough to have a presence. He’d disagree with the idea of a good age.

“I think people are people,” he said. “There are great coaches that are 70. There are great coaches that are 22. I get asked the age question a lot. I think it truly is a number. Good coaches are good coaches. I don’t think it matters.”

But that is illuminating, especially when you talk to Zeev Buium, an 18-year-old defenseman and top prospect for the 2024 NHL Draft who plays for Carle at Denver and is on the World Juniors roster. People are people. Carle sees the players as individuals and teaches them to work as a team.

“He knows how to handle every player,” Buium said. “He treats everyone the same but a little bit differently. He knows how certain guys need to be coached, and he’s really good at doing that.

“Teaching the game too. He’s never really a guy who gets too high or too low. He’s always right in the middle. You make a big mistake, you make a little mistake, he’s going to teach you the same.”

He’s going to enjoy the moment. Asked if coaching the United States in this tournament could be a stepping stone to, say, the NHL someday, he declined to look toward the future.

“I don’t think about that anymore,” Carle said. “I had that thought process when I was 18 and that went sideways, so I try and take things very much one day at a time.”

Winning gold is no longer considered a miracle for the United States, especially at World Juniors. The country has won gold four times in the past 14 tournaments, in 2010, 2013, 2017 and 2021.

How does Carle frame expectations internally and externally?

“I can tell you that they’re the highest internally, absolutely, and no doubt,” he said. “I think it’s a great honor to have that pressure and to have those expectations. Expectations and pressures are completely earned, and they were earned by the people who came before us.”

Carle mentioned the landmark wins for the United States -- the Olympic gold medals in 1960 and 1980, the World Cup of Hockey championship in 1996, the first WJC gold in 2004 -- and the success at World Juniors since.

He has his VHS tape of 1980. His players have their own videos of their own inspiring moments. Together, they have a chance to record another one.

“These kids all have a reference point of the people that came before them in this tournament, and so I think it’s unbelievable,” he said. “We’re all kind of tied together within that.”

NHL.com independent correspondent Joe Pohoryles contributed to this report