40 years ago there was a hockey game played in North Elba, New York

[RoccoF14]

......Brooks greatest dressing room speech was not the 'You were born for this' speech you see in the movie Miracle - it came 2 days later when the US was struggling against Finland. He said ' If you lose this game, you will take it to your grave - YOUR ****ING GRAVE '

USA-FINLAND 2/24/1980

I was a 13 year old Bantam Hockey player growing up in Wisconsin. I cried like a baby when that game ended (on tape delay) and I still get choked up to this day when I watch highlights of that Soviet game.

The other vivid memory I have is the feeling of absolute PANIC that I had after 2 periods of the US-Finland Gold Medal game (Loser of that game finished 4th.....don't ask me how)

I remember sitting on the couch during the second intermission thinking to myself...."it just CANT end this way....."

When Mark Johnson scored that shorty to make it 4-2 it was absolute BEDLAM in my house, because he was the only Wisconsin player on that team and he and his dad meant so much to youth hockey players growing up in that state......

 

[bwunderlich]

All Great stories/memories folks. Sitting in my friends kitchen, 5 of us with a transistor radio. I remember we really couldn't hear the last 2-minutes due to static and crowd noise.

We truly didn't believe the result till we saw the broadcast later that night.

 

[KillerMillerTime]

I was a 13 year old Bantam Hockey player growing up in Wisconsin. I cried like a baby when that game ended (on tape delay) and I still get choked up to this day when I watch highlights of that Soviet game.

The other vivid memory I have is the feeling of absolute PANIC that I had after 2 periods of the US-Finland Gold Medal game (Loser of that game finished 4th.....don't ask me how)

I remember sitting on the couch during the second intermission thinking to myself...."it just CANT end this way....."

When Mark Johnson scored that shorty to make it 4-2 it was absolute BEDLAM in my house, because he was the only Wisconsin player on that team and he and his dad meant so much to youth hockey players growing up in that state......

There were 2 players from Madison, Wi. on the '80 team. Bob Suter was the second.

 

[Fenway]

John Powers covered the game for the Globe

Reflections on covering a miracle in Lake Placid 40 years ago - The Boston Globe

The Americans fell behind, as usual, but they kept coming back. When Mark Johnson scored his goal-from-nowhere to tie the score at 2-2 with one second to go in the opening period and put Hall of Fame goalie Vladislav Tretiak on the bench, the preposterous suddenly appeared plausible.

After the Soviets regained the lead early in the second period, Johnson drew his mates even on the power play with less than a dozen minutes to play. Then here was Eruzione coming over the dasher to the top of the circle, wristing the puck past Vladimir Myshkin through a screen, and dashing into the corner to celebrate.

Where did he come from? That was the Eruzione we’d seen in college and throughout the Games, popping up at the perfect moment.

“I’m the horse that rode out of the sunset,” he’d told me before the Games.

The decisive goal by Winthrop native Mike Eruzione eludes Soviet goalie Vladimir Myshkin. AP FILE

There were exactly 10 minutes to play, and for the Americans, they were the longest imaginable. The clock never seemed to move, and when it did, the sense of foreboding kept increasing. What if the Soviets did what they did to the Finns — three goals in a minute and 19 seconds?

None of the Americans wanted to be the one who took a penalty, who turned over the puck, who made the fatal error. So they sacrificed their bodies, dropping to their knees to block shots.

“We’ll do anything to win,” O’Callahan told himself. “And they won’t.”

The clock ticked down to 2:00, then 1:00, and then the Americans were throwing their sticks and gloves in the air.

“Shock for everybody,” star Soviet defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov told me years later. “I knew we were going to score a goal, even in the last seconds.”

What I remember as much as the US celebration was watching their gracious red-clad rivals waiting patiently on their blue line to shake hands with the victors. Some of them were even smiling, amused. What the Americans had done would never be forgotten, Fetisov told me. It was a great example of how young kids can get together with a big goal in their minds and make the impossible possible.

“If you’re going to lose, you should lose like this,” Johnson observed. “It’s a classy way to lose.”

 

[Aussie Bruin]

The game play was good because the casting strategy was to cast hockey players who could play at that level, and who showed some propensity for acting. Teaching them to act (especially to act like hockey players!) would be infinitely easier than teaching actors to skate. Only exception was Eddie Cahill as Jim Craig. Because he wore a mask, he could stand on the ice for scenes with his mask up. Bill Ranford did most of the on-ice action work, behind the mask.

Very true. Nathan West, who played Rob McClanahan, had the advantage of being a legit actor who also played junior hockey at a high level. His look in the film is also a dead ringer for Jake DeBrusk:

 

[RoccoF14]

There were 2 players from Madison, Wi. on the '80 team. Bob Suter was the second.

Yes there were! Thanks for the correction. I'm getting old and slow.

Bob Suter was a mean SOB on the blue line for the Badgers....I don't think he ever played in the NHL though.

 

[Gator Mike]

Jim Craig about to join Dale & Keefe on WEEI.

 

[BMC]

John Powers covered the game for the Globe

Reflections on covering a miracle in Lake Placid 40 years ago - The Boston Globe

The Americans fell behind, as usual, but they kept coming back. When Mark Johnson scored his goal-from-nowhere to tie the score at 2-2 with one second to go in the opening period and put Hall of Fame goalie Vladislav Tretiak on the bench, the preposterous suddenly appeared plausible.

After the Soviets regained the lead early in the second period, Johnson drew his mates even on the power play with less than a dozen minutes to play. Then here was Eruzione coming over the dasher to the top of the circle, wristing the puck past Vladimir Myshkin through a screen, and dashing into the corner to celebrate.

Where did he come from? That was the Eruzione we’d seen in college and throughout the Games, popping up at the perfect moment.

“I’m the horse that rode out of the sunset,” he’d told me before the Games.

The decisive goal by Winthrop native Mike Eruzione eludes Soviet goalie Vladimir Myshkin. AP FILE

There were exactly 10 minutes to play, and for the Americans, they were the longest imaginable. The clock never seemed to move, and when it did, the sense of foreboding kept increasing. What if the Soviets did what they did to the Finns — three goals in a minute and 19 seconds?

None of the Americans wanted to be the one who took a penalty, who turned over the puck, who made the fatal error. So they sacrificed their bodies, dropping to their knees to block shots.

“We’ll do anything to win,” O’Callahan told himself. “And they won’t.”

The clock ticked down to 2:00, then 1:00, and then the Americans were throwing their sticks and gloves in the air.

“Shock for everybody,” star Soviet defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov told me years later. “I knew we were going to score a goal, even in the last seconds.”

What I remember as much as the US celebration was watching their gracious red-clad rivals waiting patiently on their blue line to shake hands with the victors. Some of them were even smiling, amused. What the Americans had done would never be forgotten, Fetisov told me. It was a great example of how young kids can get together with a big goal in their minds and make the impossible possible.

“If you’re going to lose, you should lose like this,” Johnson observed. “It’s a classy way to lose.”

USSR coach panicked when he pulled Tretiak, who was considered the greatest goaltender on the planet at that time. It must have shocked the US players when they saw Myshkin between the pipes instead of Tretiak.

 

[jgatie]

USSR coach panicked when he pulled Tretiak, who was considered the greatest goaltender on the planet at that time. It must have shocked the US players when they saw Myshkin between the pipes instead of Tretiak.

Not only that, but he never pulled Myshkin at the end, even though he was down a goal late. Tikhonov didn't believe in it and they never practiced 6 on 5.

 

[Glove Malfunction]

Not only that, but he never pulled Myshkin at the end, even though he was down a goal late. Tikhonov didn't believe in it and they never practiced 6 on 5.

To be fair, they were rarely (never?) ever down late.

 

[jgatie]

To be fair, they were rarely (never?) ever down late.

True.

 

[Fenway]

MIRACLE ON ICE – 40TH ANNIVERSARY WEDNESDAY AT 11:30 P.M. ET ON NBCSN

The Miracle on Ice – 40th Anniversary, featuring Al Michaels, who called the momentous matchup in 1980, and Mike Tirico, will premiere on Wednesday night at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN. 40 years to the month, this 30-minute special will feature Tirico’s wide-ranging conversation with Michaels about the buildup to the game, his iconic call, as well as the legacy of the moment that became bigger than sports and still resonates today.

 

[Fenway]

 

[Bodit9]

I’m at Lake Placid right now....first time and it’s awesome.

I literally got choked up walking into the arena.

As an aside....and I might be messing up some specifics, so correct me if I am, but it’s amazing how the butterfly effect figured into the Miracle.

Eruzione was supposed to play for Ron Anderson at Merrimack, but something happened and his scholarship was given away.

Then Eruzione, I believe took a year off after HS because of it.

The summer before what should have been his sophomore year his buddies begged him to fill in during a summer league game. He reluctantly played and Jack Parker happened to be there to watch someone else.

He saw Eruzione after the game and asked him what happened. In the end, Parker offered him a 1/2 scholarship I believe, and the rest is history.

No summer game....probably no BU for Eruzione, maybe no Miracle on Ice.

You are very close in your telling of Mike's story. His own journey to make the team was a miracle in itself. You should check out his new book, The Making of a Miracle. My cousin wrote it with him (bonus points: he's also a huge Bruins fan!). His story is unbelievable. My family got to meet Rizzo a couple weeks ago at a BU game & then saw the Bruins beat the Coyotes the next day. A truly epic hockey weekend. I usually get up to Lake Placid once a year & I always get chills going into the arena. USA! USA! USA!

 

[Fenway]

 

[SanDogBrewin]

Great interview with Al Michaels last night. Said Dryden picked him to do the game. Still can’t believe the game was on tape delay.

 

[Fenway]

Ken Dryden's view on how David can slay Goliath

Reliving the 'Miracle on Ice' from the game analyst's seat...

“The way you defeat a huge favorite is that you hang with them and hang with them a long time. The best way to hang with them in hockey is that your best hanging-in-player is your goalie. The goalie has to keep you in it. The other team is going to be better than you are but the goalie, by virtue of the position, is a neutralizer. You don’t want to be ahead of the big favorite in a game, and you especially don’t want to be ahead at the end of a period because if it’s the end of a period, then the team that is so much better than the other team is going to get really mad at itself. They will come back in that next period and they will be ready to change everything around. You don’t want them to feel the urgency and the panic of the moment early. Then the next period begins and it’s the same thing: You don’t get ahead of the favorite. You hang in there. You know that your goalie keeps you close and you just hang in there. The other guy doesn’t smell panic yet.

“Then you ambush them in the third period. You’ve hung around and all of a sudden, the team that is weaker starts to think, ‘You know, it is only 20 minutes. We are in this game and it’s only 20 minutes to go.’ And the favorite is saying, ‘Jesus, we are tied and it’s only 20 minutes to go.’ They start to panic a little bit and the underdog starts to feel that they have found a level they never had before and now it gets incredibly exciting.”

Dryden continued.

“My heavens, it’s after 40 minutes and we’re still in the game against the Soviet Union, the strongest team in the world. We’re still there. If you’re looking to discover a level you never had before, you’re now ready to do that. Then with every minute that passes, the favorite starts to worry. Then when you get to (Mike) Eruzione goal and it’s only about 10 minutes to go, it is full panic in terms of the Soviets and its full exhilaration in terms of the U.S. This team that could not be beaten is now behind and they are starting to doubt themselves and they don’t know what to do because they’ve never been in that position before. They are now on the verge of losing in the Olympics, to the U.S. of all teams. What they want desperately more than anything is to let the game start again. ‘If we only could go back to the beginning, we’d be more ready.’ They start to make mistakes because they’re panicking and the U.S. guys start to see panic in their eyes.

“Then it’s a free-for-all. That’s the way the giant underdog beats the giant favorite. Of course you cannot orchestrate a game like that but if you could orchestrate it, it would be exactly how that game in 1980 happened. By the time you get to the end, the unthinkable is no longer unthinkable at all. It is absolutely possible.”

 

[Fenway]

Great interview with Al Michaels last night. Said Dryden picked him to do the game. Still can’t believe the game was on tape delay.

Roone Arlidge had the clout at ABC to put the game on live but the issue was the game was being played when local stations were running lucrative local news. He asked all the hockey experts and everyone said the US would most likely be blown out especially based on what had happened 3 weeks earlier at Madison Square Garden.



ABC affiliates in Boston, Providence and Minneapolis pleaded for the game but the network said no. Border cities Detroit, Buffalo and Seattle could see the game live from CTV.

One issue was technical. Satellite TV was still in its infancy and ABC decided to stay with coaxial and microwave. The signal from Lack Placid was sent by microwave to Montreal and then into existing telephone lines that went through Toronto and Buffalo to get the signal back to New York.

I know that Boston radio station WITS broke every rule in the book by airing the CTV audio live from a listener in Vermont who could get CTV on his TV.

 

[Fenway]

How the Soviet announcers called the game - they did not sound happy

'Do you believe in Siberia? Da'

 

[KillerMillerTime]

USSR coach panicked when he pulled Tretiak, who was considered the greatest goaltender on the planet at that time. It must have shocked the US players when they saw Myshkin between the pipes instead of Tretiak.

It should be pointed out that Myshkin was the
goalie in February 1979 when USSR beat the
NHL team at MSG in The Challenge Cup 6-0.
So it wasn't like Tikhonov didn't have confidence
in Myshkin. Tretiak as great as he was in fact
was garbage against the USA.

The one thing that tends to get overlooked
about the Czech and USSR games is the
terrible goaltending the US took advantage
if against The Czechs and USSR and the timely
and stellar tending Craig gave the US.

 

[KillerMillerTime]

Roone Arlidge had the clout at ABC to put the game on live but the issue was the game was being played when local stations were running lucrative local news. He asked all the hockey experts and everyone said the US would most likely be blown out especially based on what had happened 3 weeks earlier at Madison Square Garden.



ABC affiliates in Boston, Providence and Minneapolis pleaded for the game but the network said no. Border cities Detroit, Buffalo and Seattle could see the game live from CTV.

One issue was technical. Satellite TV was still in its infancy and ABC decided to stay with coaxial and microwave. The signal from Lack Placid was sent by microwave to Montreal and then into existing telephone lines that went through Toronto and Buffalo to get the signal back to New York.

I know that Boston radio station WITS broke every rule in the book by airing the CTV audio live from a listener in Vermont who could get CTV on his TV.

That Witnify video stating the US was not considered a medal contender isn't accurate. SI in their Winter Olympic preview had the US as winning The Bronze.
Having watched a couple of Pre Olympic games
and knowing the talent on the team I thought
they had a maybe 1 in 4 chance of getting into
The Medal Round. So I call BS on putting Finland ahead
of the US.

The key games were the first 2 and Sweden was basically
on par with the US talent wise. The game against
Czechoslovakia was the eye opener. Looking back
history is 20/20 but the Czech goalie literally was
brutal. The Czech's were not going to be a factor
with a goalie that terrible. IMO if the Czech's and
US played a 7 game series, the US would have given
the Czech's a competitive series.

 

[rfournier103]

I’m a little bit of a history buff with several university-level history and political science courses under my belt. I am deadly serious when I say that Team USA’s defeat of the Soviet Union in 1980 isn’t just a great moments in sports history, it’s one of the GREATEST moments in ALL of American history. All of it. In its entirety.

We all know the state the country was in in 1980, so there’s no need to rehash that. But I see that moment as a milepost of the ‘70s ending and the ‘80s beginning and a rebirth of American confidence.

This is just one example of how not all of our greatest and most important victories are won on the battlefield.

 

[BMC]

I’m a little bit of a history buff with several university-level history and political science courses under my belt. I am deadly serious when I say that Team USA’s defeat of the Soviet Union in 1980 isn’t just a great moments in sports history, it’s one of the GREATEST moments in ALL of American history. All of it. In its entirety.

We all know the state the country was in in 1980, so there’s no need to rehash that. But I see that moment as a milepost of the ‘70s ending and the ‘80s beginning and a rebirth of American confidence.

This is just one example of how not all of our greatest and most important victories are won on the battlefield.

I agree. The 70s were awful- Watergate, inflation, oil crisis, Iran hostages, 3 Mile Island, etc. Just a giant bag of suck.

This win came at the right time we needed something to life our spirits.

 

[jgatie]

I’m a little bit of a history buff with several university-level history and political science courses under my belt. I am deadly serious when I say that Team USA’s defeat of the Soviet Union in 1980 isn’t just a great moments in sports history, it’s one of the GREATEST moments in ALL of American history. All of it. In its entirety.

We all know the state the country was in in 1980, so there’s no need to rehash that. But I see that moment as a milepost of the ‘70s ending and the ‘80s beginning and a rebirth of American confidence.

This is just one example of how not all of our greatest and most important victories are won on the battlefield.

I was 14 when they won the gold. In my lifetime the country had seen two assassinations of very public figures, the loss in Vietnam, Nixon impeached/resign, the busing fiasco, gas shortages, Carter's "national malaise", the Iranian hostages (and the failed attempt to rescue them), the Afghanistan invasion, etc.

I literally had never heard a good thing about my country that didn't start with "back in the old days". Nobody flew the flag. Nobody sang the anthem. Hell, I knew kids that wouldn't stand for the pledge of allegiance, and the teachers didn't care.

The Miracle changed all that. One little hockey game changed the whole world.

 

[KillerMillerTime]

I was 14 when they won the gold. In my lifetime the country had seen two assassinations of very public figures, the loss in Vietnam, Nixon impeached/resign, the busing fiasco, gas shortages, Carter's "national malaise", the Iranian hostages (and the failed attempt to rescue them), the Afghanistan invasion, etc.

I literally had never heard a good thing about my country that didn't start with "back in the old days". Nobody flew the flag. Nobody sang the anthem. Hell, I knew kids that wouldn't stand for the pledge of allegiance, and the teachers didn't care.

The Miracle changed all that. One little hockey game changed the whole world.

I am 10 years older than you, but I can clearly remember in 1972, a lot of really pissed off sports fans when the USSR beat the US in basketball in the 1972 games which themselves were a nightmare, and Wallace was almost murdered (no fan of that guy), so the suck started in the fairly early seventies.