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The "Miracle on Ice" is the popular nickname for the men's ice hockey game in the 1980 Olympic Winter Games, in which a team of amateur and collegiate players from the United States beat the long-dominant and heavily-favored Soviet Union on February 22, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York. The United States went on to win the gold medal; the USSR took the silver and Sweden the bronze.* The Miracle on Ice is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in the history of American sports.
Prelude and group play
The United States entered the competition without a great deal of fanfare, having been seeded seventh in the final round of twelve teams which qualified for the Lake Placid Olympics. They were composed of collegiate players and amateurs, some of whom had signed a contract to play in the National Hockey League, the world's premier professional league, in the future. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, were the favored team going into the tournament. Though classed as amateur, Soviet players essentially played professionally in a well-developed league with excellent training facilities. They were led by legendary players in world ice hockey, such as Boris Mikhailov, a right-wing who served as the team captain, and Vladislav Tretiak, considered by many to be the best ice hockey goaltender in the world at the time, as well as talented, young, and dynamic players such as defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov.
The two teams were natural rivals because of the Cold War. In addition, President Jimmy Carter was at the time considering an American boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, to be held in Moscow, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began the year before. Carter eventually decided in favor of the boycott.
On February 9, the two teams met for an exhibition match in order to practice for the upcoming competition. The Soviet Union won 10-3.
In group play, the United States surprised many observers with their physical, cohesive play, starting with a 2-2 tie against Sweden and followed by a 7-3 victory against a very strong team from Czechoslovakia. The American team finished with 4 wins and 1 draw to advance to the medal round. In the other group, the Soviets stormed through their opposition undefeated, often by grossly lopsided scores – knocking off Japan 16-0, the Netherlands 17-4, and Poland 8-1 – and easily qualified for the next round. Sweden and Finland also qualified for the medal round.
The two teams prepared for the medal round in different ways. Coach Viktor Tikhonov of the Soviets 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 any 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 win the Olympic gold medal for the sixth time in the last seven tournaments."
Medal round: U.S. vs. USSR
The home crowd, reinforced by the Americans' improbable run during group play and the Cold War "showdown" mentality, were in a patriotic fervor throughout the match, waving American flags and singing patriotic songs such as "God Bless America." The rest of America (except those who watched the game live on Canadian television) would have to wait to see the game, as ABC decided not to cover the games live, but rather on tape delay so the late afternoon game could be seen in primetime. The Americans, however, fell behind early, as they had in many of their preliminary games. 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 Americans to tie the game, the Soviets rallied again with a Sergei Makarov goal.
Down 2-1, Craig improved his play, turning away many Soviet shots before the Americans had another shot on goal. In the waning seconds of the first period, Dave Christian fired a desperate slap shot on Tretiak. The Soviet goalie saved the shot but misplayed the rebound, and Mark Johnson scooped it past Tretiak to tie the score as the clock ticked down to one second left in the period. The frustrated Soviet team played the final second of the period with just three players on the ice, as the rest of the team had retired to their dressing room for the first intermission.
Tikhonov replaced Tretiak with backup goalkeeper Vladimir Myshkin to start the second period, a move which surprised many players on both teams, including Fetisov, who would later identify it as the "turning point of the game". The switch seemed to work at first, however, as Myshkin allowed no goals in the second. Aleksandr Maltsev scored on the power play to make the score 3-2.
8:39 into the final period, Johnson scored again for the U.S., firing a loose puck past Myshkin to tie the score. Suddenly the U.S. found itself deep into the hockey game tied with the most powerful team in the world. But not for long. Only a couple shifts later, Mark Pavelich passed to U.S. captain Mike Eruzione, who was left undefended in the high slot. Eruzione fired a shot past Myshkin, who was screened by his own defenseman. This goal gave the U.S. a 4-3 lead with exactly 10 minutes to play in the contest.
Craig withstood another series of Soviet shots to finish the match, though the Soviets did not remove their goalkeeper for an extra attacker. As the U.S. team tried desperately 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 arguably the most famous call in sports broadcasting history, the line for which the match would later be known:
Medal round: U.S. vs. Finland
The match against the Soviet team was very emotional and so memorable that many Americans either don't recall or are unaware that the victory did not win the Americans the gold medal. However, the magnitude of the game and shocking result, especially to a nation where hockey had not become big yet, made it feel like a championship victory. However, the U.S. still had to play Finland. The U.S. could clinch the gold medal with a victory, but if they lost and the Soviets won, the Soviets would win the gold medal since at that time the tournament did not have a bracket format. Each of the remaining four teams would have been 1-1 in medal round play, and only the Soviets had won every preliminary game. Once again, Brooks skated a hard practice the day before the game, determined to remind his team that no medal had been clinched.
Coming into the dressing room before the game, Brooks turned to his players, looked at them and said, "If you lose this game, you'll take it to your fucking graves." He then paused, took a few steps, turned again, said, "Your fucking graves," and walked out.
Still, as they had throughout the Olympics, the U.S. fell behind early, this time 2-1 after two periods, because of excellent play by the Finnish goalie, Jorma Valtonen.
With twenty minutes to play in the contest, the U.S. needed to overcome one final obstacle. As U.S. defenseman Jack O'Callahan relates in the HBO Documentary Do You Believe in Miracles?, "There was no way we were going to let Finland keep a gold medal from us. And we just steamrolled them from the time they let us out of that gate. They never had a chance."
Indeed, in the third period, the U.S. dominated. Three unanswered goals from Phil Verchota, Rob McClanahan, and Mark Johnson gave the U.S. a 4-2 victory and the gold medal. Players mobbed the ice, sticks and gloves flying. Jim Craig roamed the ice, draped in an American flag, scanning the crowd for his father, with whom he wanted to share the moment. Craig's mother had recently died, after expressing her dream that he play on the Olympic squad. Millions of Americans were moved to overjoyed tears as this team that was given no shot by the sports world to even win a medal, celebrated its gold medal–clinching victory.
Often, the game against Soviet Union is called the "semifinal" and the game against Finland is called the "final" or the "gold medal game". This is not quite accurate. In 1980 Olympics, each of the four teams who qualified for the medal round (U.S., USSR, Sweden, Finland) played the teams that they did not yet play. The team with the most points against the other teams in the medal round would become the Olympic champion. After the U.S. upset the Soviet Union, each team in the medal round except Finland (who could finish no higher than Silver) still had a chance to win the gold medal, depending on the results of the last two games.
The American aftermath
Eruzione accepted the Gold Medal for the United States, inviting all of his teammates onto the podium with him.
The match versus the Soviets popularized the "U-S-A! U-S-A!" chant, which has been used by U.S. supporters at many international sports competitions since 1980. Some historians and political commentators actually consider the 1980 hockey game as a major turning point in the political races that were taking place in 1980.
Of the 20 players on the US team, 13 eventually played in the NHL. Five of them would go on to play over 500 NHL games.
- Neal Broten had arguably the most successful pro career, appearing in 1099 NHL games over 17 seasons, mostly with the Minnesota North Stars/Dallas Stars. A two-time All-Star, he tallied 923 career points (289 goals, 634 assists) and won a Stanley Cup as a member of the New Jersey Devils in 1994-95.
- Ken Morrow won a Stanley Cup in 1980 as a member of the New York Islanders, becoming the first hockey player to win an Olympic gold medal and the Cup in the same year. He went on to play 550 NHL games and win three more Cups, all with the Islanders.
- Mike Ramsey had the longest NHL career, playing in 1070 games over 18 years. Fourteen of those years were spent with the Buffalo Sabres, for whom he was a five-time All-Star and served as team captain from 1990-92.
- Dave Christian spent 14 years in the NHL, the bulk of them for the Winnipeg Jets and Washington Capitals. He ended his career with 773 points (340 goals, 443 assists) in 1009 games and made the All-Star team in 1991.
- Mark Johnson bounced around the NHL for several years before finding a home in New Jersey, but he was a scoring threat wherever he went, tallying 508 career points (203 goals, 305 assists) in 669 games over 11 seasons.
One of Brooks's assistant coaches, Craig Patrick, went on to become a successful general manager in the NHL and is now in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Brooks himself would coach several NHL teams following the Olympics, with mixed results. He would also return to the Olympics as coach of the 2002 team, winning the silver medal. Brooks died in a car crash in 2003 at the age of 66.
Long NHL careers were not in the cards for every member of the team, however. Most notably, team captain Mike Eruzione played his last high-level hockey game in the 1980 Olympics, as he felt that he had accomplished his hockey goals with the gold medal win.
Michaels was named "Sportscaster of the Year" in 1980 for his coverage of the event, and the team received Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsmen of the Year" award.
In 2002, the members of the team jointly lit the Olympic Flame at the climax of the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.
In 2004, ESPN, as part of their 25th anniversary, declared the Miracle on Ice game vs. the Soviets the top sports headline, moment, and game of the period 1979–2004.
Soviet aftermath
Though their immediate public reactions were generally sportsmanlike, the Soviet players' primary postgame emotion was despair, accentuated by coach Vladimir Tikhonov's rage. There was also fear involved; a position on the national team was a high-status placement in Soviet society, affording a better lifestyle to the players in return for the perceived propaganda value of international sporting dominance. A loss to the humble American team negated this goal. Though the game was on live television in the Soviet Union, it was played at 1:00 AM Moscow time. This afforded Communist Party officials some ability to squelch news and discussion; Pravda did not carry a game report or mention the match in its post-Olympic wrap-up, and the hockey players were quickly and quietly herded away from the arrival reception for Olympic athletes at Moscow's airport.
Despite the loss, the Soviet Union remained the pre-eminent force in international ice hockey for many years. NHL teams continued to draft Soviet players in hopes of enticing them to eventually play professionally in North America, but the first would not be permitted do so until 1988-89, when veteran Sergei Priakin joined the Calgary Flames. The first true Soviet star to play in North America, Alexander Mogilny, had to defect in 1989 to join the Buffalo Sabres; soon thereafter, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a flood of ex-Soviet stars in the NHL, including 1980 Olympians Viacheslav Fetisov, Sergei Makarov, Vladimir Krutov, Alexei Kasatonov, and Helmut Balderis. Since then, many of the NHL's top players, such as Sergei Zubov, Sergei Fedorov, Igor Larionov, Alexander Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Sergei Gonchar, and Pavel Bure, have come from the former Soviet Union.
Films about the event
A movie of the same name, starring Karl Malden as Brooks and Steve Guttenberg as Craig, aired on television in 1981, and was released in theaters in 1989. A second movie about the hockey victory called Miracle, starring Kurt Russell as Brooks, was released in 2004.
In the episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" of The X-Files it is said that the USSR lost because the Cigarette Smoking Man rigged the game by drugging the USSR goaltender (Tretiak).
Team Rosters
| United States === |
| Pos. | Name | Age | Hometown | College |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | ||||
| D | ||||
| D | ||||
| C | ||||
| LW | ||||
| RW | ||||
| D | Bill Baker | 22 | Grand Rapids, MN | Minnesota |
| C | Neal Broten | 19 | Roseau, MN | Minnesota |
| D | Dave Christian | 20 | Warroad, MN | North Dakota |
| RW | Steve Christoff | 21 | Richfield, MN | Boston U. |
| RW | John Harrington | 22 | Virginia, MN | Minnesota-Duluth |
| G | Steve Janaszak | 22 | White Bear Lake, MN | Minnesota |
| LW | Rob McClanahan | 21 | St. Paul, MN | Minnesota |
| D | Jack O'Callahan | 21 | Charlestown, MA | Boston U. |
| C | Mark Pavelich | 21 | Eveleth, MN | Minnesota-Duluth |
| LW | Buzz Schneider | 24 | Babbitt, MN | Minnesota |
| RW | Eric Strobel | 21 | Rochester, MN | Minnesota |
| D | Bob Suter | 22 | Madison, WI | Wisconsin |
| LW | Phil Verchota | 22 | Duluth, MN | Minnesota |
| C | Mark Wells | 21 | St. Clair Shores, MI | Bowling Green |
Soviet Union ===
| Pos. | Name | Age | Hometown |
|---|---|---|---|
| G | |||
| D | |||
| D | |||
| C | |||
| LW | |||
| RW | |||
| RW | Helmuts Balderis | 27 | Riga, Latvia |
| D | Zinetula Bilyaletdinov | 24 | Moscow, Russia |
| RW | Aleksandr Golikov | 27 | Penza, Russia |
| LW | Vladimir Krutov | 19 | Moscow, Russia |
| RW | Yuri Lebedev | 28 | Moscow, Russia |
| RW | Sergei Makarov | 21 | Chelyabinsk, Russia |
| C/RW | Aleksandr Maltsev | 30 | Kirovo-Chepetsk, Russia |
| G | Vladimir Myshkin | 34 | Kirovo-Chepetsk, Russia |
| D | Vasili Pervukhin | 24 | Penza, Russia |
| LW | Aleksandr Skvortsov | 25 | Nizhny Novgorod, Russia |
| D | Sergei Starikov | 21 | Chelyabinsk, Russia |
| D | Valeri Vasiliev | 30 | Nizhny Novgorod, Russia |
| C | Viktor Zhluktov | 36 | Inta, Komi Republic, Russia |
The Officials
The referee of the U.S. vs. USSR match was Carl-Gustav Kaisla from Finland. Linesmen were Nico Toemen from The Netherlands and Francoise LaRochelle from Canada.
References
- Coffey, Wayne. The Boys of Winter. New York City: Crown Publishers, 2005.
- Do You Believe in Miracles? The Story of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team. HBO Home Video, 2001.
- Dolezar, Jon A (2002). "Russian hockey looked different after '72 Summit Series". Sports Illustrated. Sep. 27, 2002.
- "Herb Brooks killed in car accident". Sports Illustrated. Aug. 11, 2003.
- Kindred, Dave. "Born to Be Players, Born to the Moment". Washington Post. February 23, 1980, Page A1.
- Shapiro, Leonard. "U.S. Shocks Soviets in Ice Hockey, 4-3". Washington Post. February 23, 1980, Page D1.
- Swift, E.M (1980). "With one seemingly harmless shot, Mike Eruzione staked the U.S. to a lead and a Miracle on Ice". Sports Illustrated. Mar. 3, 1980.
See also
1980 in ice hockey | 1980 Winter Olympics | ABC Sports | Ice hockey at the Olympics | Ice hockey lore | Sport and politics
"Miracle on Ice"