Exclusive | The American hockey player ‘has come of age,’ Lou Lamoriello tells The Post

Lou Lamoriello had some pangs of nostalgia Saturday night watching Team USA defeat Canada. 

He was thinking, of course, about 1996 in the same building, when the Team USA he built beat Canada in two consecutive games to take the World Cup of Hockey after having lost the first of a three-game final on home soil in Philadelphia. 

“It was a war,” Lamoriello told The Post after the Islanders returned to practice Tuesday. “Those days, you were allowed to play a little more than you are right now, the physicality. And both teams had power, both teams had size, both teams had strength.” 

Lamoriello, Team USA’s GM in 1996, constructed the roster that stands as the only American team to triumph in best-on-best competition, though the current 4 Nations Face-Off team can reach the same heights by beating Canada in Thursday’s final in Boston.