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Americans go crazy for Team USA's curling gold medal in wee hours of morning

henry bushnell
Senior reporter

The United States of America is officially a curling nation. And not just because the U.S. men won gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Also because thousands of Americans stayed up until anywhere between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. to watch them shock the world.

They held watch parties in Duluth, Minnesota:

And in Oakland, California:

In Columbus, Ohio:

And in Fairbanks, Alaska:

In Laurel, Maryland:

And in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin:

And in basements and living rooms all across the country:

Some were (jokingly) anticipating Philadelphia-style Super Bowl celebrations in Minnesota, the home state of three of the four Team USA curlers:

Fans flooded social media with reactions, too. The biggest moment of the match was John Shuster’s “fiver” – the final throw of the eighth end that clinched the U.S. a remarkable five points. That broke a 5-5 tie and put the U.S. up 10-5 with just two ends remaining.

The U.S. men’s curling team celebrates its gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Thousands of Americans celebrated with them back home. (Getty)
The U.S. men’s curling team celebrates its gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. Thousands of Americans celebrated with them back home. (Getty)

After the fiver, sports Twitter exploded, never mind that it was the middle of the night:

(Twitter)
(Twitter)
(Twitter)
(Twitter)

Fellow Olympians were reacting as well. ESPN’s Julie Foudy was watching with the U.S. women’s hockey team, which had won gold medals of its own 48 hours earlier:

As it became clear the U.S. was going to win, social media reaction continued to roll in:

Plenty of people came through with the obvious pun:

Shoutout, though, to Yahoo Sports’ Joey Gulino, who definitely had it first in our Slack room.

Oh, and somebody put the “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” call to the video of Shuster’s now-famous shot:

And of course Mr. T, who gave the team a pep talk before the gold medal match, chimed in:

What a night for the curling squad. What a night for America. Everybody who stayed up past 3 or 4 a.m. was vindicated.

More Olympic coverage from Yahoo Sports:
• Watch: Shuster delivers best curling highlight you’ll ever see
• Canadian Olympian allegedly steals car in PyeongChang
• Figure skating star Rippon would ‘totally’ accept call from Pence
• Passan: Ledecka is the Olympics’ answer to Bo Jackson
• Does this photo finish show South Korean snowboarder losing?