Miracle on Ice
The Soviet Union entered the Lake Placid games as the heavy favorite, having won four consecutive gold medals dating back to the 1964 games. In the four Olympics following their 1960 bronze-medal finish at Squaw Valley, Soviet teams had gone 27, 1, 1 and outscored their opponents 175, 44. Head-to-head matchups against the United States over that period resulted in a cumulative score of 28, 7. The Soviet team had not lost a game in Olympic play since 1968.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter was considering boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics, which were to be held in Moscow, in protest of the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On February 9, the same day 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 an IOC meeting. President Carter eventually decided in favor of the boycott.
Western nations protested the Soviet Union's use of full-time athletes, as they were forced to use amateur players due to the International Olympic Committee's amateur-only policy. The situation even led to Canadian withdrawal from the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, but the IOC did not change the rules until the late 1980s.
U.S. head coach Herb Brooks held 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. Brooks' selection process included a 300-question psychological test that would give him insight on how every player would react under stress; anyone who refused to take the test would automatically fail.
Brooks wanted to include Joe Mullen, a future three-time Stanley Cup winner, but his father was ill, and Mullen signed a professional contract with the St. Louis Blues to support his family financially. The average age of the U.S. team was 21 years, making it the youngest team in U.S. history to play in the Olympics. As forward John Harrington said, "He knew exactly where to quit. He'd push you right to the limit where you were ready to say, 'I've had it, I'm throwing it in' , and then he'd back off."
In September 1979, before the Olympics, the American team started exhibition play. They played a total of 61 games in five months against teams from Europe and the United States. Through these games, Brooks instilled a European style of play in his team, emphasizing wide-open play with sufficient body contact. From the start of the exhibition matches, he conducted the team through skating wind sprints consisting of end line to blue line and back, then end line to red line and back.
As in several previous games, the U.S. team fell behind early. Vladimir Krutov deflected a slap shot by Alexei Kasatonov past U.S. goaltender Jim Craig at the 9:12 mark to give the Soviets a 1, 0 lead. At the 14:03 mark, Buzz Schneider scored for the United States on a 50-foot shot from the left board to tie the game. The Soviets struck again when Sergei Makarov scored with 17:34 gone.
In the waning seconds of the first period, Dave Christian fired a slap shot on Tretiak from 18 feet away. The Soviet goalie saved the shot but misplayed the rebound, which bounced out some 10 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. Referee Karl-Gustav Kaisla ruled that one second would be put back on the clock and the usual center ice faceoff would take place before the first intermission could begin.
Tikhonov replaced Tretiak with backup goaltender Vladimir Myshkin immediately after Johnson's goal, a move that 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 2:18 into play.
Prior to the Friday game, ABC requested that it be rescheduled from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EST, so that it could be broadcast live in primetime. However, the IIHF declined the request after the Soviets complained that it would cause the game to air at 4 a.m. Moscow Time, as opposed to 1 a.m. As a result, ABC decided not to broadcast the game live for the U.S. audience and tape delayed it for broadcast during its primetime block of Olympics coverage.
Before the game aired, ABC's Olympics host Jim McKay openly stated that the game had already occurred, but that they had promised not to spoil its results. To accommodate coverage of the men's slalom competition, portions of the game were also edited for time. ABC's 8 to 8:30 p.m. timeslot was instead devoted to the animated special The Pink Panther in: Olym-Pinks. To this day, some who watched the game on television in the United States still believe that it was live.
Sportscaster Al Michaels, who was calling the game on ABC along with former Montreal Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden, picked up on the countdown in his broadcast, and delivered his famous call. Michaels was named "Sportscaster of the Year" in 1980 for his coverage of the event. Michaels spent 26 more years covering sports for ABC before moving to NBC to call Sunday Night Football alongside John Madden and then Cris Collinsworth after Madden retired.
Of the 20 players on Team USA, 13 eventually played in the NHL. Five of them played over 500 NHL games, and three of them played over 1,000 NHL games. Neal Broten appeared in 1,099 NHL games over 17 seasons, 992 of them with the Minnesota North Stars/Dallas Stars franchise. He captained the Stars before being traded midway through the 1994, 95 season to the New Jersey Devils. A two-time All-Star, he tallied 923 career points (289 goals, 634 assists), became the first American player to record 100 points in a season, and won a Stanley Cup as a member of the Devils in 1995.
Ken Morrow won the 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 played 550 NHL games and won three more Cups, all with the Islanders. Mike Ramsey played in 1,070 games over 18 years. Fourteen of those years were spent with the Buffalo Sabres, with whom he played 911 games and was a five-time All-Star, captaining the team from 1990 to 1992.
Team captain Mike Eruzione did not play any high-level ice hockey after the 1980 Olympics, as he felt that he had accomplished all of his hockey goals with the gold medal win. He did work as a hockey television analyst in the 1980s and 1990s. Herb Brooks coached several NHL teams following the Olympics, with mixed results. He returned to the Olympics as coach of the French team in 1998, the first Olympics in which NHL players competed.
Miracle on Ice, a made-for-TV movie starring Karl Malden as Brooks, Steve Guttenberg as Craig, and Andrew Stevens as Eruzione aired on ABC television in 1981. It incorporated actual game footage and original commentary from the 1980 Winter Games. The documentary film Do You Believe in Miracles?, narrated by Liev Schreiber, premiered on HBO in 2001 and was subsequently released on home video.
In 2004, Walt Disney Pictures released the film Miracle, directed by Gavin O'Connor and starring Kurt Russell as Brooks. Al Michaels recreated his commentary for most of the games. The final ten seconds and his "Do you believe in miracles? YES!" call were from the original broadcast and used in the film since the filmmakers felt that they could not ask him to recreate the emotion he felt at that moment. The film was dedicated to Brooks, who died shortly after principal photography completed.
The U.S. team received the magazine's "Sportsmen of the Year" award, and were also named Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press and ABC's Wide World of Sports. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named the "Miracle on Ice" the top sports moment of the 20th century. As part of its centennial celebration in 2008, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) named the "Miracle on Ice" as the top international ice hockey story of the past 100 years.
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Common questions
Who won the gold medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic ice hockey tournament?
The United States team won the gold medal by defeating the Soviet Union in the Miracle on Ice game. This victory marked a historic upset as the Soviets had not lost an Olympic game since 1968.
When did the U.S. men's ice hockey team defeat the Soviet Union during the 1980 Winter Olympics?
The American and Soviet teams met in an exhibition game on February 9, but the actual Olympic match occurred later during the Lake Placid games. The final score of the famous game is recorded within the context of the 1980 Winter Olympics held that year.
How many players from the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey roster eventually played in the NHL?
Thirteen of the twenty players who made the final Olympic roster went on to play professional hockey in the National Hockey League. Five of those players appeared in over 500 NHL games while three others played more than 1,000 games.
Why was the 1980 Olympic ice hockey game between the United States and the Soviet Union tape delayed for ABC television?
ABC requested to reschedule the broadcast from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. EST to air live in primetime but the IIHF declined due to complaints about Moscow Time scheduling. Consequently ABC decided not to broadcast the game live for the U.S. audience and instead taped it for their primetime block.
What role did Herb Brooks play in creating the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team?
U.S. head coach Herb Brooks held tryouts in Colorado Springs during the summer of 1979 to select the final roster. He implemented a psychological test involving 300 questions and instilled a European style of play emphasizing wide-open action with body contact.