MILAN — The big, beautiful, goosebump-inducing noise of the Olympics can be as quiet as the rhythmic breathing of a toddler napping on a hockey hero’s shoulder.

Unable to wait until the Opening Ceremony, the Winter Games got a 24-hour head start at becoming a rip-roaring party, as the U.S. women’s team rocked Czechia 5-1 Thursday. A cozy ice barn rattled with classic songs from AC/DC to John Denver. The capacity crowd buzzed when Vice President J.D. Vance took a seat for the contest.

Not that American hockey hero Kendall Coyne Schofield noticed any of the wonderful hullabaloo.

“All I saw was my son in the stands,” she said. “He waved to me after the game.”

Happiness was a groove, everywhere you looked.

Pucks, skates and the Olympic rings. Oh, my.

Before we even officially hit Day One of the competition in Milan, the Winter Games were so very back, baby.

It was good to see the golden smiles of winter again.

Four years ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic and its government restrictions were still a thing, the Winter Olympics in Beijing were draped in black.

With all foreigners except the athletes prohibited from attending, the strict protocols often made skating and skiing competitions feel more like solitary confinement than fun and Games. Slapshots in the hockey arena echoed coldly off row upon row of empty seats. The small handful of Chinese spectators carefully screened and selected to provide the illusion of enthusiasm were forbidden to cheer, allegedly for fear of spreading disease.

The thrill of victory felt overshadowed by dystopian clouds looming on the horizon in China. But don’t take my word for it.

American speedskater Brittany Bowe earned a bronze medal at 1,000 meters in 2022. Earlier this week, she looked back at it with sadness.

“I know for me winning a medal in Beijing made me feel quite empty,” Bowe said. “It made me realize that I’m doing (skating) for so many other people than just myself. Crossing the finish line and not being able to see family, friends and everybody who has been part of your journey was kind of sad.”  

At those eerily quiet Winter Games in China, Coyne Schofield walked away disappointed with a bitter loss to Canada in the championship game, but looked forward to starting a family.

In the summer of 2023, she welcomed a son named Drew into the world with the loving support of Michael Schofield, a former NFL offensive lineman, who was a starter for the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl 50.

“I didn’t want my son to be the reason I stopped playing hockey,” she told Olympics.com during an interview in October. “I wanted him to be the reason I kept playing.”

So, here Coyne Schofield is again, this time lacing ‘em up in northern Italy, with a young child in tow, proudly representing family and country in her fourth Winter Games, looking to skate off into the sunset with the second gold medal of her storied Olympic career.

This opening game of her quest, dominated by Team USA from the moment in the first period, when Alex Carpenter scored on one of the 42 shots that would pepper Czech goaltender Klara Peslarova all night long, reminded everyone in attendance why Coyne Schofield might’ve regretted it forever if she had bypassed this opportunity.

Valerie Good is a 30-year-old New York Rangers diehard from Queens, who defines adulthood as having a career long enough to afford to hop a plane to Europe and spend a healthy chunk of change on tickets to both the Opening Ceremony and a hockey game within a single 24-hour period.

“The vibes in this arena? 10 out of 10! Can’t believe I finally made it to the Olympics!” said Good, wearing her sunglasses inside the rink to pose for a new profile pic certain to turn friends green with envy. “And, honestly, I didn’t know the crowd would come out like this and be so loud for women’s hockey. It’s amazing.”

With a rolling sea of red, white and blue in the stands, it could’ve passed as the Fourth of July in Milwaukee instead of the Feb. 5 in Milan. Chants of U-S-A roared when Team USA attacked the offensive zone with the puck. It was a pep rally for America disguised as a hockey match.

The Olympics, Vance told U.S. athletes competing in the Winter Games, “is one of the few things that unites the entire country.”

Yes, a nation cheering with one voice is beautiful. But it paled in comparison to the quiet scene I stumbled across as the crowd filed out of the Milano Rho Ice Arena.

Outside the U.S. women’s locker room, where family and friends gathered after the victory, Coyne Schofield appeared wearing a gray sweatshirt, blue shorts and slide sandals. In that moment, she stopped being an inspirational icon in the growth of women’s hockey for an even more important job: motherhood.

She swept up Drew in her arms. Wearing a tiny No. 26 sweater of his absolute favorite hockey player, the little boy offered a hug tight enough to burst a mother’s heart with joy.

Goosebumps.

The tenderness of their reunion was only a motion away.

Within seconds, caring not at all about the final score of Coyne Schofield’s hockey game, the kid was dozing peacefully on the right shoulder of Mommy.

Ain’t that America?