Twenty-eight years later, the miracle still lives on.

Friday February 22, 2008 @ 12:32 PM EST

Today the year 1980 seems so long ago, but it’s hard to forget that year. An oil crisis was happening, it was a presidential election year, the country and the world weren’t in the best of shapes, and we were still in the midst of the Cold War. But all the while, while everything seemed to be a mess, the United States Olympic hockey team, which consisted of collegiate players whom a lot were from rival teams, were preparing for the upcoming winter games in Lake Placid, NY. Not that everyone had hockey on the brain, especially in the United States, at that time but those who did didn’t give the team a chance in hell to match up against the other teams, most importantly the Soviets. The Soviet hockey team had been a dominating force, not only in Olympic hockey, but in hockey in general.


Which meant that the past six Olympic games they had walked away, easily, with the gold medal. Not since twenty years earlier, in 1960, that the Soviets lost the gold medal, and they lost it to the United States in Squaw Valley, CA; the last time the winter games were held in the United States. Even with the upcoming games being in Lake Placid, no one saw that as an advantage for the United States to even make it into the medal round, let alone win the gold.


One of the only real believers in the group of kids brought together, that would if not on the same team working for one goal would fight one another just because of the part of the country they were from, was their coach Herb Brooks. Brooks, who had beaten out a few other prominent college hockey coaches including Bob “Badger” Johnson of the University of Wisconsin, was the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach and former player himself. Brooks was from St. Paul and had grown up playing hockey, later attending the U of M and eventually making it onto the 1960 US Olympic Hockey team. Unfortunately, for Brooks, he was the last player cut from the 1960 roster before the team headed to Squaw Valley and never got to relish in the victory of winning an Olympic gold medal.


But this wasn’t 1960 it was 1980, with a new group of collegiate players who were some of the best in the country, and the hockey sense – some say hockey insanity, of Brooks at the helm; it was possible for another Soviet upset. Months before the Olympics, the team was practicing, strategizing, and putting aside their differences and start gelling as a team; playing pre-Olympic games around the United States and in Europe. Also, they were preparing for a pre-showdown with the Soviets at Madison Square Garden on February 9, three days before the Opening Ceremonies. But all of that practice, hoping and planning may have been for nothing. The Soviet Union had recently invaded Afghanistan and if they declined to pull out, the United States decided to boycott the upcoming summer games in Russia.


Which in turn got people thinking, “if we don’t go there, they won’t come here.” But they did. They weren’t going to pass up an opportunity to bring home an Olympic medal. After the game at MSG, which the United States lost 10-3, hopes for an Olympic medal were even more of a dream. But the team never lost hope, it was hard not to when your head coach was losing hope for you. Though there was a purpose for the way Brooks’ was treating them, he knew that if he distanced himself from them and made himself the enemy, the guys would come together as a team and persevere.


In the first game they played Sweden and going into the third period were down 2-1. With just thirty seconds left in the game Brooks pulled goalie Jim Craig and Bill Baker tied it up. They next beat Czechoslovakia and the three following teams giving them a record 4-0-1. Next up, the match up that no one even thought imaginable and all eyes were on the hockey arena in Lake Placid. People were still skeptical about pulling off a win, including Dave Anderson of the New York Times;


“Unless the ice melts, or unless the United States team or another team performs a miracle, as did the American squad in 1960, the Russians are expected to easily win the Olympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments.”


Left wing Buzz Schneider gave the United States an early 1-0 lead, scoring against, at the time, considered the best goalie in the world, Vladislav Tretiak. But the lead didn’t last long as Sergei Markarov scored to tie up the game and the Soviets rallied to take a 2-1. In the last seconds of the first period Dave Christian hit a slap shot into the Soviet end. Coming off the bench, Mark Johnson, scooted past two Soviet defenders, who thought the horn to signify the end of the period was going to sound, and scored the tying goal with seconds left. Soviet head coach, Viktor Tikhonov, contested the goal but the officials said the goal stood.


At the start of the second period jaws dropped when Soviet back-up goaltender, Vladimir Myshkin, came out on the ice in replacement of Tretiak. The Soviets took a 3-2 lead early in the period, but 8:39 into the period Johnson scored again to tie it up. And just 1:61 later Mark Pavelich passed the puck to captain Mike Eruzione, with Myshkin being screened by his own defenseman, Eruzione shot from the slot giving the US a 4-3 lead exactly halfway through the third period. The US was able to hold off the Soviets for the rest of the period and Al Michaels uttered this famous phrase;


”...Eleven seconds, you’ve got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk…five seconds left in the game…Do you believe in miracles? YES!!!”


The impossible happened. A group of college kids, most of whom hated each other, had just beaten the best hockey team in the world. They had just one more feat to make this dream come true. They had to play Finland to win the gold, but if they lost they wouldn’t get any medal. But they did it yet again and came from behind to beat Finland 4-2; the miracle was now complete.


Of the twenty players, thirteen of them went on to play in the NHL; Neal Broten, Ken Morrow, Mike Ramsey, Dave Christian, and Mark Johnson to name a few. Brooks went on to coach in the NHL and later was behind the bench again at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Since 1980 the US has not won an Olympic gold medal and after those Olympics the US started using NHL stars instead of collegiate players.


The Miracle will always live on as one of the best moments in sports history, one of the biggest upsets. It also set the tone for US Hockey, which without who knows where hockey would stand in the United States. The US hasn’t won a gold since then, but with the young talent coming up from the US and playing in the NHL, who knows what can happen. Another miracle perhaps? If you believe, it can happen.

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