When the Olympics roll around, it’s not about the money—or, for many competitors, about the medals. It’s about the chance to represent your country, to compete against the world’s best no matter the result, and to tell the story of how you got there.

That’s not to say that the Games are a perfect competition. Just last week, Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko publicly declared that he should have won the gold medal over eventual victor Evan Lysacek—a statement that doesn’t exactly scream “good sport.”

But in the Olympics, the touching stories far outweigh the rest. And to see one of those stories—like that of Chinese figure skaters Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao, who came out of retirement for one last shot at a gold medal—end in the fulfillment of a lifelong dream? Well, that’s why I love sports—and the chance to tell those stories, albeit on a smaller scale, is why I’ve stuck around The Crimson as long as I have.

So when I watch tomorrow’s women’s hockey gold-medal game, I’ll do my best to keep that sense of wonder in mind. For either squad, anything less than a top finish will be a disappointment—a dream unfulfilled. To work that hard for so long for one game? That sort of drama is as much a part of the fabric of the story of these Olympics as the tales of adversity and triumph.

But getting the chance to wear your country’s uniform in a celebration of the best sports has to offer? In that sense, the dream has already come true for every athlete in these Games.

“Any time you get a chance to be a part of the Olympic Games, [it’s] humbling in every way,” said Chu, a three-time Olympic veteran, in October. “It makes us realize that we’re just a small part of something that is much bigger than a win or a loss.”

Tomorrow night’s game probably won’t be remembered by the public as vividly as 1980’s Miracle on Ice. But for the women skating in it, it represents the same idea—a celebration of the belief that dreams really do come true.

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.