Do You Believe in Miracles? It Has Been Called the Greatest Sporting Moment in American History
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archived as http://www.stealthskater.com/Documents/SI_007.doc (also …SI_007.pdf) => doc pdf URL-doc URL-pdf more sports-related articles are on the /Sports.htm page at doc pdf URL note: because important websites are frequently "here today but gone tomorrow", the following was archived on 03/27/2020. This is NOT an attempt to divert readers from the aforementioned website. Indeed, the reader should only read this back-up copy if the updated original cannot be found at the original author's site. Do You Believe in Miracles? It has been called the greatest sporting moment in American history. On its 40th anniversary, we look back at the Miracle on Ice. by A.J. Baime / AARP Magazine, February-March 2020 1 On July 15, 1979, Americans switched on the TVs to watch President Jimmy Carter deliver what would become known as his "Crisis of Confidence" speech. The President told millions that America had lost its sense of Greatness. "The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America," Carter said. "The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us." First Vietnam, then Watergate, and now long lines at the gas pump as inflation soared. "What can we do?" Carter asked. Less than 2 weeks later in Colorado Springs, Colorado, some 70 college hockey players (nearly all from Minnesota or Massachusetts) [remember that in those days, professional athletes were banned from the Olympics], moved into dormitories at the U.S. Olympic Training Center where 42-yr-old coach Herb Brooks began the process of winnowing the group to the 20 players who would represent at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Brooks' team at the University of Minnesota had just won the NCAA Division I national championship. A bunch of his players were now on the ice. The tryouts were unnoticed because there was little hope of success. The Soviet Union had won hockey Gold in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976. And just 5 months earlier, they had defeated the NHL All-Stars (the best of North America's professional hockey players) 6-0 in an exhibition game. The Soviets had not lost even a single Olympic game since 1968. Still among college hockey players, the pressure to make the U.S. team was extreme and the rivalries were intense. Mike Eruzione (forward, Boston University): I knew that there were lots of good players in Minnesota. But I didn't realize the history and intensity. You don't know the coach and he doesn't know you. So you wonder. But I still felt that I had a good chance to make the team. Gerald Eskenazi (sportswriter, New York Times): I was a hockey guy. Originally, the newspaper was not going to cover the team. They didn't think that the USA was going to do anything special. But I convinced the Times to send me. Coach Brooks pulled the team together in just a matter of weeks. He was pretty tough on them. He sort of pitted the New England guys against the Minnesota guys. Herb Brooks (coach, quoted on August 9, 1979): The system ... will be different than past Olympic teams. We want to learn the European style of hockey so that we can compete with them. We're going to take a page from Europe's book. We're going to be more innovative, more mobile, and break ... stereotypes in our system of play. John Powers (sportswriter, Boston Globe): They used to pick a team and send them to the Olympics. And usually they got crushed. But Herb got this team together in September. They played 61 exhibition games through to the Olympic Games in February. They played some NHL teams, some college teams, and some minor-league teams in Canada (a real sock-'em league). Herb wanted to make sure that his team could deal with the International game which was played quite physically. Mike Eruzione: We had practice one day. And when it ended, Herb said: "Okay. We're on the ice tomorrow at 10 o'clock. Mike, you're the captain. See you tomorrow." It was nice. But to be 2 honest with you, it wasn't a big deal. This was a team of captains. Almost every guy on the team was the captain of his college or high school team. John Powers: The last exhibition game was on February 9 (right before the Olympics) against the Soviets at Madison Square Garden. The Soviets crushed the U.S. players who were all amateurs. The Soviets were all hockey legends. Many of them were going to go into the hockey Hall of Fame. Jim Craig (goalie, Boston University): They were the greatest hockey team that the Russians ever produced. Meanwhile off the ice, the "Crisis of Confidence" had deepened. In November, Iran had seized more than 50 hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. In December, the USSR had invaded Afghanistan and Americans became fearful of the Soviets' growing nuclear threat. Vice-President Walter Mondale of Minnesota: It was a very intense time. We thought that the Soviets were going to do us harm. They were strutting around threatening us with the nuclear weapons. I'd been involved with the Olympics for some time. So my wife Joan and I went up there. We didn't know that we were going to see the Greatest Hockey Game Of All Time. The paint was still drying on many of the athletic complexes in Lake Placid when 1,400 athletes from 36 countries converged on the tiny alpine village with its Main Street and single stoplight. The best known of the Americans were speedskater Eric Heiden and skiing brothers Steve and Mahre. Few sports fans had heard of Mike Eruzione, Jim Craig, or coach Herb Brooks. Few knew of the deep-seated obsession that Brooks possessed to defeat the Soviets. Or that he himself had been the last player cut from the 1960 Olympic team (the last U.S. hockey team to beat the USSR and win gold). Only one of the American players of 1980 had any Olympic experience. Their average was 22 compared with 27 on the Soviet side. A.J. Baime (schoolkid sports fan back then, now an author and journalist): I was only 9 years old. But I was a hockey fan and knew enough to know that the 'Red Army' (as the Soviet team was called) had come to symbolize dominance around the World. Soviet propaganda song at the time (translated): The ears ring with music of Attack! The Ice Brotherhood fights hard. And we trust in the courage of desperate guys. Real men play hockey! Cowards don't play hockey! Cowards don't play hockey!" Vsevolod Kikushkin (Soviet journalist and translator who traveled with the Soviet team): The team was staying at the Olympic Village with other athletes. It was a quite tense situation. In the USA, some people were crazy enough to think that the Soviet ice hockey players were responsible for this adventure in Afghanistan. That is just plain stupidity. John Powers: They had built a minimum-security prison right outside of town. That's where the Russian players were living. The Americans were in trailers. There were only a handful of hotels/motels in town. There was no place to put everybody. 3 Steve Yianoukos (Lake Placid Zamboni driver (later an athletic director at Clarkson University): Russian players were not allowed to come to the NHL. But there were rumors that players might be defecting during or after the Olympics. It was real high security. John Powers: The first game was against Sweden. It was played the day before the opening ceremonies. The Americans hadn't beaten the Swedes since the 1960 Olympics. The Swedes were seeded 3rd and the Americans 7th in the 1980 Games. The U.S. never led in that game. There were behind 1-0 and then 2-1. Near the end of the game, Herb pulled goalie Jim Craig to get an extra guy. And Billy Baker scored with 27 seconds to tie it 2-2. Dave Christian (defenseman, University of North Dakota): It was a late goal and maybe the Biggest of the whole tournament. Who knows how the tournament would have gone with an opening loss. Billy Baker did score. Everything started to snowball from that point on. Kelly Brooks Paradise (coach Brooks' daughter): Lake Placid was gorgeous. But the town was just crazy and you couldn't get any cars anywhere. My mom, my brother, and I were staying in a cottage up in them mountains. We almost missed the opening ceremonies. They couldn't get a car up to get us. My mom was hitch-hiking. Some local in a pickup truck was able to get us down to the ceremonies. Dave Christian: The fact that we were in the Olympics hit home when we marched in the Opening Ceremonies. It was like "This is the Olympics! Here we are!" Czechoslovakia was the next game. Everybody looked at the Czechs as being the only team that had a shot of beating the Soviet Union. Gerald Eskenazi: That was the first time you heard the chant "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! ..." Mike Eruzione: As a Country, we were looking for something to feel good about. Herb sometimes used to call us a lunch-pail hard-hat group of guys. Because that's who we really were. We were working-class kids who came from working-class families.