But the original "Miracle of Ice" had happened nearly half-a-century earlier at the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmish-Partenkirchen, the German resort in Bavaria, when Great Britain became the first team in the history of the Games to stop Canada winning the gold medal.

One of the heroes of that side was the goaltender Jimmy Foster, who conceded only three goals in the tournament and whose heroics included a shutout against the United States in a match which went to three periods of overtime.

As we reported earlier today, Foster is one of nine new inductees into the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Hall of Fame 2023, the third person connected with that British team from 1936 to be recognised with the sport’s highest honour.

He joins Bunny Ahearne, the inspiration behind that unlikely Olympic triumph, and Carl Erhardt, captain of the British team that won the gold medal, who were inducted by the IIHF in 1997 and 1998 respectively.

While the news has been cause of celebration among the UK ice hockey fraternity, it is unlikely to have been cheered quite so loudly in Canada, where resentment about that defeat and the manner of it, still runs deep, even today.

The British Ice Hockey Association (BIHA), founded in 1913, was only reformed after the First World War in 1923, but when their team placed third in the Chamonix Olympics of 1924, interest in the sport boomed.

At St. Moritz in 1928, Britain again did well, placing fourth, and interest in the domestic game continued its upward trajectory. Matches at Wembley Empire, where the swimming pool was frozen over in the winter so it could host matches, attracted crowds of 10,000, the leading players were earning more than the top footballers of the time and the magazine Ice Hockey World had 50,000 readers.

The money in the sport in Britain and the buzz surrounding the sport inevitably begun to attract players and coaches from overseas, particularly Canada, where the sport had developed and become immensely popular.

Among those was Foster, who had been born in Glasgow in Scotland, but who had emigrated with his parents to Canada at the age of six, settling in Winnipeg, an ice hockey hotbed, where his father worked as a blacksmith.

In 1932, Foster led Moncton Hawks of the Maritime Senior Hockey League to the finals of the Allan Cup. Canada’s senior amateur men's ice hockey championship, and at one stage that season went an astonishing 417 minutes without conceding a goal.

In 1935, along with the coach of the Moncton Hawks and Foster's long-time mentor, Percy Nicklin, the fair-haired, five-foot, five-inch Foster moved to London to play for the Richmond Hawks. The Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) suspended Foster and team-mate Alexander Archer for "leaving the dominion without permission" to play in England.

The year Foster moved to England, Britain came third at the World Championships in Davos, and in the first stage led the eventual winners, Canada, before losing 4-2.

Until then, Britain’s team had been made up mostly of army officers and students living in the UK, but the evolution of the sport meant it was growing in quality, thanks to the influx of overseas players into the game.

Ahearne, the BIHA secretary, appointed Nicklin as manager and instituted a rule that each domestic team was to field at least four British-born players, then put out a message across Canada: "Were you born back home?"

To quell growing anger across the Atlantic about this controversial recruitment policy, Ahearne and Erhardt sailed to Toronto to broker an agreement with the CAHA. 

A deal was sealed that meant the BIHA would forbid the use of players who had not obtained permission to move from Canada, and the CAHA would not deny that permission to anyone who followed the correct procedures.

Emboldened, Ahearne and Erhardt spent the rest of the trip in Canada travelling the country to scout more potential new recruits.

Of the British squad that travelled to Bavaria for the 1936 Winter Olympics, nine of the 13 had grown up in Canada with 11 having played most of their ice hockey there.

Before the matches started, the Ligue Internationale de Hockey sur Glace, as the IIHF was then known, held a meeting, where the CAHA complained about players leaving to play in the UK without permission. Britain strongly protested its innocence, but when a vote was taken, they lost. It meant Foster and Archer were suspended.

The British continued to insist they had not broken any rules, and three days into the tournament, the CAHA backed down and agreed that they would compete against Foster and Archer - a decision they would come to regret.

Britain beat Sweden 1-0 in their opening group match, and then Japan 3-0 to qualify for the second stage.

In the first match of the second stage, Britain defeated Canada 2-1 at the Olympia-Kunsteisstadion, built in only 106 days to stage ice hockey and figure skating during the Games. Victory was clinched 80 seconds from the end when Edgar "Chirp" Brenchley, born in Sittingbourne but bought up in Niagara Falls, scored the winner.

Even then, Foster was called upon several times more in the time that remained, standing firm against the late Canadian onslaught. There was no mass hysteria among the British team at the end on inflicting a first Olympic defeat on a team most believed to be invincible. They celebrated with handshakes and three cheers for their opponents. 

The following night, Britain took on Germany, with an extra fourth period unable to separate the teams as both teams settled on a 1-1 draw. Just a few hours later, Britain were back in action at 9am but comfortably beat Hungary 5-1 in a match watched by German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and the Nazi’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels and military leader Hermann Göring.

Both Foster and team-mate Don Dailley passed their Olympic accreditations up to the VIP box - located above the dug out - for autographing. When World War Two broke out three years later Foster burned his. Dailley, though, did not, and when, in 1983, The Sunday Times published the "Hitler Diaries", he produced it to help prove that they were fake.

At this point of the competition, Canada grew even angrier when a new format was introduced which meant each of the four teams would play twice, against those it had not met during the previous stage, carrying over the result gained against its remaining opponent.

Canada had won every gold medal in Olympic ice hockey since it had made its debut at the Summer Games in Antwerp 1920 before becoming part of the winter edition when that was held for the first time at Chamonix 1924. They then retained the title at St. Moritz 1928 and Lake Placid 1932.

But under this new system, they realised that if Britain beat the US and Czechoslovakia then the gold medal would certainly be theirs. The Canadians claimed it was "one of the worst manipulations in sporting history" and asked that all four teams play another, a suggestion overwhelmingly rejected.

The US beat Czechoslovakia and so did Britain, 5-0. Foster now had four shutouts in seven games and knew that if they beat the US, they were champions. 

The teams shared six scoreless periods before deciding enough was enough, and at the end, the stadium announcer informed the crowd that Britain had won the gold medal, though this was inaccurate. 

The US could still pip Britain if they beat Canada without conceding a goal, or by 5-1 in their final match. But Canada beat them 1-0, ensuring gold went to the side they had come to resent.

In Glasgow, Foster’s heroics were front page news alongside mass anti-fascist and anti-royalist demonstrations in Paris which took 50,000 armed police to quell.

Foster, known as “The Parson” because he aimed to become a minister, never did preach, and never returned to Scotland.

After Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936, Foster and Nicklin moved to play for the Harringay Greyhounds at an impressive new 8,200-seat arena. They stayed for four seasons, twice capturing the English National League title in 1938-1939 and 1939-1940.

For Great Britain, Foster continued to be Nicklin’s rock. When the European Championships came to London in 1937, he was a brick wall, earning shutouts in eight of the nine games, helping to make Britain's retention of their title, which came as part of their Olympic victory, look easy.

In 1938 in Prague in Czechoslovakia, he kept out Germany and Norway on the first two days. His third clean sheet came in the vital contest against the host nation to determine the destiny of the European title. 

Against the odds, and with a hostile home crowd of 14,000 spectators against them, Foster again produced a shutout as Britain beat Czechoslovakia 1-0.

The event was held alongside the World Championships, where Britain won the silver medal as Canada gained some more consolation for their Olympic upset as they won 3-1. It was the second consecutive year they had pipped Britain to the gold medal, having done the same in London 12 months earlier.

Overall, Foster played in 31 World Championship matches, 16 of which were shutouts. 

He went back to Canada to work in the aircraft industry on the outbreak of World War Two, and subsequently was a salesman. He died on January 4 1969.