T.J. Oshie, U.S. hockey team fuel Olympics social media frenzy
USA forward T.J. Oshie is greeted by teammates after scoring a goal against Russia during a shootout of a men's ice hockey game at the 2014 Winter Olympics, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. Credit: AP / Julio Cortez
T.J. Oshie and the U.S. Olympic hockey team had the social media world buzzing Saturday.
The United States' thrilling 3-2 shootout win over Russia was a popular event on Twitter, with nearly a million tweets being sent out about the game in a four-and-a-half hour span.
There were more than 900,000 tweets about the game from 7:30 a.m. to noon ET, according to metrics provided by Twitter. Oshie (whose Twitter handle is @OSH74) had more than 136,000 mentions during that same timespan from fans, fellow athletes and celebrities.
Even President Barack Obama got in on the congratulations, tweeting from the @WhiteHouse handle: "Congrats to T.J. Oshie and the U.S. men's hockey team on a huge win! Never stop believing in miracles. #GoTeamUSA -bo"
By noon, Oshie had gained 45,000 new followers, Twitter said -- and the number has only risen since then.
Some other notable Olympics statistics from Twitter:
More than 18.4 million tweets have been sent since the start of the Olympics, including 2.8 million since 3:52 p.m. Friday.
As of 3:52 p.m. Saturday, the hashtag #Sochi2014 has been tweeted 2,964,022 times, the most popular of any Sochi-related hashtag.
