Dan Vladař relishes in his Olympic experience; Flyers’ Americans celebrate Team USA’s historic gold

Dan Vladař had goosebumps when he first saw his jersey hanging in his stall.

For the first five minutes of his lone start, he just thought to himself, “wow,” as he looked around and saw the fans waving flags and the Olympic rings plastered everywhere.

“This is actually happening,” he thought.

Indeed. The Flyers’ No. 1 goalie returned to practice on Sunday for the first time after donning the red, white, and blue of Czechia at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.

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Vladař played in one game, allowing three goals on 12 shots in a 6-3 win against France in Czechia’s second game of the tournament. France took a 3-2 lead at one point in the second period before David Pastrňák tied it up, and Czechia never looked back.

“You never know if you’re ever going to get the chance, so I didn’t want to take it for granted, but it was, for me, it was just trying to focus on myself,” he said about his solo start.

“Obviously, we won, it was good. I wasn’t the best, but those games are tough when you’re just standing there, and nothing’s going towards you, and then, all of a sudden, you look up, and you’re like, one, two, three; you’re like, what’s going to happen now?”

The Czechs tournament ended in the quarterfinals with a 4-3 overtime loss to Canada on a goal by Mitch Marner against Lukáš Dostál. Vladař said he spoke with his Flyers teammate, Travis Sanheim, during handshakes and congratulated Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, an assistant on Jon Cooper’s staff, in the tunnel after. The two Flyers won silver medals on Sunday, one day after defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen won bronze with Finland.

For the 28-year-old goalie, leaving Italy without a medal didn’t diminish the experience. He stayed in the athlete’s village — goalies got their own room — and took in the sights and food of Milan. He liked the freshness of all the salads and pasta, which were cooked al dente, but didn’t have any pizza, and rode the golf cart in full gear between rinks.

He wasn’t able to take in other events due to a tight schedule, or get the tattoo he told The Inquirer he was planning on getting — that’s coming in the summer, he said — but “I was trying to enjoy every moment, every second there, which I thought I did.”

Vladař is now back between the pipes for a Flyers team trying to make a playoff push with 26 games left in the season. Across his first 33 games, which is already a career high, he went 17-8-6 with a 2.47 goals-against average and .905 save percentage. And while he didn’t return to Philly with a medal, he came back with some fuel.

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“You don’t want to have that feeling again, losing [and] not accomplishing anything; that was probably ... my biggest fire coming back here, was just, I don’t want to feel like we all felt after that overtime goal in the quarterfinals,” he said.

“I think that we still have some time to really push for it and then, at least, sneak in.”

The Flyers’ practice was slated to start at 11 a.m., and on a typical day, guys start hitting the ice well in advance. But Sunday was not your typical day as the United States and Canada were going toe-to-toe in the men’s hockey finale at the Olympics.

Huddled in the video room, the Flyers watched — and then hooted and hollered, according to Cam York — as Jack Hughes scored the golden goal to give the Americans their first gold medal in men’s ice hockey since the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics at roughly 10:55 a.m. It came on the 46th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” when the plucky U.S. squad of collegians upset the powerhouse Soviet Union before beating Finland for gold. York said he won $100 off Canadian Tyson Foerster thanks to the U.S. win.

“That’s my good buddy who scored the overtime winner, so that was pretty crazy,” said New York native Trevor Zegras. “It was weird practicing after that.”

“It was one of the best games I’ve ever watched, I think, just the pace of it all, the Grade A chances, both sides, goalies playing incredible,” added the Californian York, who played with Zegras for the U.S. National Team Development Program and won gold at the 2021 World Juniors.

“For USA Hockey, it’s huge, it’s been a long time coming, I think, and to see those guys win, I thought that was just a really sick game.”

» READ MORE: How the Americans’ 1996 World Cup team changed U.S. hockey forever.

It’s been a long time coming indeed. The U.S. entered the day with 12 medals but just two golds in men’s hockey, from the 1980 and 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. The last time USA Hockey medaled was 2010, when Sidney Crosby, who was injured and unable to play on Sunday, scored a heartbreaking golden goal in the finale.

“It was a big one. [Goalie Connor] Hellebuyck was unbelievable in that game, made a lot of huge saves there,” said Christian Dvorak. “Americans came through, so it was great to watch and fun to chirp some of the Canadians in here.”

The Flyers have seven Americans on the roster in York, Zegras, Maine’s Garnet Hathaway, Dvorak (Illinois), and the Minnesotans, Nick Seeler, Noah Cates, and Bobby Brink; Sean Couturier was born in Phoenix but grew up in New Brunswick and represents Canada on the international stage.

None of the players on the current roster were around for the last gold medal, and only five, including Hathaway and Dvorak, were around for the 1996 World Cup victory over Canada. For assistant coach Todd Reirden, this was another special — and defining — moment for hockey in the U.S.

» READ MORE: Team USA honors the late Johnny Gaudreau after winning Olympic gold in Milan

“I remember clear as day, everything that went on with that ’80 Olympics, being pretty young at the time, 9 or 10 years old. So it was something I could remember very clearly, and how exciting it was, and how those guys became my heroes,” said the Illinois native.

“To see where it’s come now, I think all that stuff was a culmination of the growth of the game, and now it’s going to continue. Major credit to what USA Hockey has done with the way that they’ve changed the way that they’re teaching the youth, the small area games, the smaller sheets. You see the skill level players, we see it all the time in the NHL, but it’s really made it a more exciting game, and something that hopefully will continue to rise because it’s fun to be a part of.”

With Vladař back from Italy, Aleksei Kolosov was loaned back to Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League on Sunday.