T.J. Oshie is The Herald’s Man of the Year in Sports

Published 7:03 pm Sunday, July 12, 2015

As a hockey player, T.J. Oshie reached the pinnacle of his sport when he took the ice to play in the National Hockey League.

As an American hockey player, Oshie reached a similar pinnacle when he was named to the United States Olympic team for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

Playing hockey for a paycheck is one thing, but playing hockey while representing your country is another. Oshie, who was raised in Everett, was understandably thrilled by the chance to wear a uniform of red, white and blue in the Olympics.

But the best moment of all came midway through the Games, and it was one that made Oshie — The Herald’s 2014 Man of the Year in Sports — a household name in the U.S., and even earned him a congratulatory mention from President Barack Obama.

It happened in a Feb. 15 preliminary-round game against Russia at the Bolshoy Ice Dome in Sochi. The score was 2-2 after regulation and remained tied through an overtime period, sending the two teams to a shootout. Oshie was the only one of three Americans to score in the opening shootout rounds and the Russians likewise scored just once, sending the shootout to additional sudden-death rounds.

By Olympic rules — and those rules are different from those used in the NHL — teams can use any player to take additional shootout shots. So U.S. coach Dan Bylsma picked Oshie, and only Oshie, to take the next five shots.

In those five attempts, Oshie twice had chances to win the game and missed. He twice needed to make a shot to extend the shootout and he did. But after Russia’s Ilya Kovalchuk missed on the fifth extra shot, Oshie scored against Russia goalie Sergie Bobrovsky to give the Americans a dramatic 3-2 shootout victory.

Oshie was unavailable for comment for this story. But in the joyous aftermath of that game, he told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper that he was feeling “relief more than anything. I mean, I was having fun. I had more moves and I felt like I could keep going. But I was glad for the team.

“Honestly,” he added, “I’m grateful to Dan and the whole coaching staff for showing that kind of belief in me. I mean, we’ve got a lot of guys on that bench qualified to do what I did.”

Perhaps. But it was Oshie who repeatedly got the nod from Bylsma, just as it was Oshie who got a Twitter mention from the White House.

“Congrats to T.J. Oshie and the U.S. men’s hockey team on a huge win! Never stop believing in miracles,” tweeted President Obama after the game.

Unfortunately, the Olympics did not end happily for Oshie and the other Americans. After finishing the preliminary round with two regulation wins and the shootout win, the United States defeated the Czech Republic 5-2 in the opener of the playoff round. But the U.S. then lost to Canada 1-0 in the semifinals and to Finland 5-0 in the bronze-medal game.

The 28-year-old Oshie was born in Mount Vernon, but grew up in Everett — and NHL web sites refer to his birthplace as Everett, at Oshie’s request. He later spent one year at Stanwood High School, but then moved to Minnesota to further his hockey career.

Oshie was a first-round draft choice of the St. Louis Blues in the 2005 NHL draft, but went on to play three years at the University of North Dakota. He joined the Blues in 2008 and played his first seven NHL seasons there, but was then traded to the Washington Capitals earlier this month.