Miracle on Ice – Cold War Weather



Miracle on Ice – Cold War Weather

1980 U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team

Lake Placid, New York

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The "Miracle on Ice" is the name in American popular culture for a medal-round men's ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, on Friday, February 22. The United States team, made up of amateur and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet team, who were considered to be the best ice hockey team in the world at the time.

[pic] Coach Herb Brooks

Team USA went on to win the gold medal by winning its last match over Finland. The Soviet Union took the silver medal by beating Sweden in its final game.

In 1999, Sports Illustrated named the "Miracle on Ice" the Top Sports Moment of the 20th Century. As part of its 100th anniversary celebrations in 2008, the International Ice Hockey Federation chose the "Miracle on Ice" as the century's number-one international ice hockey story.

The Soviet Union entered the Olympic tournament as heavy favorites, having won the ice hockey gold medal in 1956 and every year since 1964. In the four Olympics after the Soviet squad was upset by Team USA at Squaw Valley in 1960, Soviet teams had gone 27–1–1 (W-L-T) and outscored the opposition 175–44. In head-to-head match-ups against the United States, the cumulative score over that period was 28-7. The Soviet players were amateurs (some were active-duty military) who played in a well-developed league with world class training facilities. They were led by legendary players in world ice hockey, such as Boris Mikhailov (a top line right winger and team captain), Vladislav Tretiak (considered by many to be the best ice hockey goaltender in the world at the time), the speedy and skilled Valeri Kharlamov, as well as talented, young, and dynamic players such as defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov and forwards Vladimir Krutov and Sergei Makarov. From that team, Tretiakretiak, Kharlamov, and Fetisov would eventually be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

U.S. head coach Herb Brooks conducted tryouts in Colorado Springs in the summer of 1979. Of the 20 players who eventually made the final Olympic roster, Buzz Schneider was the only one returning from the 1976 Olympic team. Nine players had played under Brooks at the University of Minnesota, while four more were from Boston University. Assistant coach Craig Patrick had played with Brooks on the 1967 U.S. national team.

[pic] President Jimmy Carter

The Soviet and American teams were natural rivals due to the decades-old Cold War. In addition, President Jimmy Carter was at the time considering a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, to be held in Moscow, in protest of the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On February 9, the same day that the American and Soviet teams met in an exhibition game in New York City, U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance denounced the impending Moscow games at a meeting of the International Olympic Committee. President Carter eventually decided in favor of the summer boycott.

[pic] 1979 Soviet Union invades Afghanistan

The U.S. and Soviet teams prepared for the medal round in different ways. Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov rested most of his best players, preferring to let them study plays rather than actually skate. U.S. coach Herb Brooks, however, continued with his tough, confrontational style, skating hard practices and berating his players for perceived weaknesses.

The day before the match, columnist Dave Anderson wrote in 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."

The Field House (capacity 8,500) was packed. The home crowd waved U.S. flags and sang patriotic songs such as "God Bless America." The game was aired live on CTV in Canada, but not ABC in the United States. Thus, American viewers who resided in Canadian border regions and received the CTV signal could watch the game live, but the rest of country had to wait.

After the Soviets declined a request to move the game from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for U.S. television (this would have meant a 4 a.m. start in Moscow for Soviet viewers), ABC decided to broadcast the late-afternoon game on tape delay in prime time. Before the game, Brooks read his players a statement he had written out on a piece of paper, telling them that "You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours."

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The Game:

First period

As in several previous games, the U.S. team fell behind early. Vladimir Krutov deflected a slap shot by Aleksei Kasatonov past U.S. goaltender Jim Craig to give the Soviets a 1–0 lead, and after Buzz Schneider scored for the United States to tie the game, the Soviets struck again with a Sergei Makarov goal. With his team down 2–1, Craig improved his play; turning away many Soviet shots before the U.S. team had another shot on goal (the Soviet team had 39 shots on goal in the game, the Americans 16).

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In the waning seconds of the first period, Dave Christian fired a slap shot on Tretiak from 100 feet away. The Soviet goalie saved the shot but misplayed the rebound, which bounced out some 20 feet in front of him. Mark Johnson sliced between the two defenders, found the loose puck, and fired it past a diving Tretiak to tie the score with one second left in the period. The first period ended with the game tied 2–2.

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Second period

Tikhonov replaced Tretiak with backup goaltender Vladimir Myshkin immediately after Johnson's tying goal, a move which shocked players on both teams. Tikhonov later identified this as the "turning point of the game” and called it "the biggest mistake of my career." Myshkin allowed no goals in the second period. The Soviets dominated play in the second period, outshooting the Americans 12–2, but scored only once, on a power play goal by Aleksandr Maltsev. After two periods the Soviet Union led 3–2.

[pic] U.S. Goalie Jim Craig

Third period

Vladimir Krutov was sent to the penalty box at the 6:47 mark of the third period for slashing. The Americans, who had managed only two shots on Myshkin in 27 minutes, had a power play and a rare offensive opportunity. Myshkin stopped a Mike Ramsey shot, and then U.S. team captain Mike Eruzione fired a shot wide. Late in the power play, Dave Silk was advancing into the Soviet zone when Valeri Vasiliev knocked him to the ice. The puck slid to Mark Johnson. Johnson fired off a shot that went under Myshkin and into the net at the 8:39 mark, as the power play was ending, tying the game at 3. Only a couple of shifts later, Mark Pavelich passed to Eruzione, who was left undefended in the high slot. Eruzione, who had just come onto the ice, fired a shot past Myshkin, who was screened by Vasili Pervukhin. This goal gave Team USA a 4–3 lead, its first of the game, with exactly 10 minutes left.

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The Soviets attacked furiously. Moments after Eruzione's goal, Maltsev fired a shot which ricocheted off the right goal post. As the minutes wound down, Brooks kept repeating to his players, "Play your game. Play your game." Instead of going into a defensive crouch, the United States continued to play offense, even getting off a few more shots on goal. The Soviets began to shoot wildly, and Sergei Starikov admitted that "we were panicking." As the clock ticked down below a minute the Soviets got the puck back into the American zone, and Mikhailov passed to Vladimir Petrov, who shot wide. The Soviets never pulled Myshkin for an extra attacker, much to the Americans' disbelief. Starikov later explained that "We never did six-on-five", not even in practice, because "Tikhonov just didn't believe in it." Craig kicked away a Petrov slap shot with 33 seconds left. Kharlamov fired the puck back in as the clock ticked below 20 seconds. A wild scramble for the puck ensued, ending when Johnson found it and passed it to Ken Morrow. As the U.S. team tried to clear the zone (move the puck over the blue line, which they did with seven seconds remaining), the crowd began to count down the seconds left. Sportscaster Al Michaels, who was calling the game on ABC along with former Montreal Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden, picked up on the countdown in his broadcast, and delivered his famous call:

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“11 seconds, you’ve got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk. 5 seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? YES!” – Al Michaels

The United States did not immediately win the gold medal upon defeating the USSR. In 1980 the medal round was a round-robin, not a single elimination format as it is today. Under Olympic rules at the time, the group game with Sweden was counted along with the medal round games versus the Soviet Union and Finland so it was mathematically possible for the United States to finish anywhere from first to fourth.

Needing to win to secure the gold medal, Team USA came back from a 2–1 third period deficit to defeat Finland 4–2. According to Mike Eruzione, coming into the dressing room in the second intermission, Brooks turned to his players, looked at them and said, "If you lose this game, you'll take it to your graves." He then paused, took a few steps, turned again, said, "Your f**king graves," and walked out.

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At the time, the players ascended a podium to receive their medals and then lined up on the ice for the playing of the national anthem, as the podium was only meant to accommodate one person. Only the team captains remained on the podium for the duration. After the completion of the anthem, Eruzione motioned for his teammates to join him on the podium. Today, podiums are not used for ice hockey; the teams line up on their respective blue lines after the final game.

In the Soviet locker room Tikhonov singled out first-line players Tretiak, Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov, and told each of them, "This is your loss!" Two days after the Miracle on Ice, the Soviet team crushed Sweden 9–2, winning the silver medal. The Soviet players were so upset at their loss that they did not turn in their silver medals to get their names inscribed on them, as is custom.

The result stunned the Soviet Union and its news media. The day after the loss, the TASS news offices at Lake Placid's International Broadcast Center were closed, with a handwritten note taped to the door of the office stating "Today Closed We Are." Pravda did not mention the game, either in its next daily issue or in its Lake Placid wrap-up.

Despite the loss, the USSR remained the pre-eminent power in Olympic hockey until its 1991 break-up. The Soviet team did not lose a World Championship game until 1985 and did not lose to the United States again until 1991. Throughout the 1980s, NHL teams continued to draft Soviet players in hopes of enticing them to eventually play professionally in North America, but it was not until the 1988-89 season that the NHL saw its first Soviet player, when veteran Sergei Pryakhin joined the Calgary Flames.

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