Today is the 40th anniversary of one of the biggest upsets in sports history. And it all happened in upstate New York.
By now, sports fans know Al Michaels’ call by heart, but the Olympic men’s hockey medal round game on February 22, 1980 actually wasn’t seen by the vast majority of Americans in real time unless you had a ticket.
The game between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was shown on tape delay on ABC. And in the pre-cell phone age, it was possible to keep the stunning result secret.
But the scoreboard in what’s now Herb Brooks Arena, named for the Americans’ demanding coach, said it all: the U.S. scored twice in the first period and twice more in the third to win the game 4-3 and attain sports immortality.
“This was an upset, this was a gigantic, gigantic upset, and so that’s why the word ‘miraculous’ came into my brain and I said what I said. But that had everything to do with what an upset, what an incredible moment this is, and not something that I ever thought would live in posterity,” Michaels said.
Team captain Mike Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal.
“For some it was a hockey victory and for some it was a political meaning,” Eruzione said. “Something as a country for a short in the arm, and I think realizing what we did 40 years ago, I guess we brought a lot of pride back to a country that was looking for something, and it happened to be us.”
The U.S. went on to beat Finland 4-2 two days later to win the gold medal after Brooks told the Americans they would take it to their grave if they didn’t win the whole thing.
Today, the Miracle on Ice is remembered as an important moment in the Cold War, its meaning mythologized to the extent that when the arena finally replaced its scoreboard in 2017, pieces of the old one from that iconic Friday evening were already being claimed.
Left wing Buzz Schneider came back to the arena for the decommissioning.
“It’s part of history and it’s going to be gone but I can understand why they’re doing it. But it’ll be missed by me for sure. But I want to touch that 4 to 3 before I see it disappear,” he said.
Made into countless documentaries, two feature films and ranked as the top Sports Illustrated cover of all-time, the game’s details have become familiar even for people too young to remember it: how the college athletes banded together under Brooks’ hard-driving approach, how they rebounded from a 10-3 exhibition loss to the Russians just before the Games, and how they never gave up against them despite trailing three times.
The Russian team was heavily favored after winning four straight Olympic gold medals. Michaels said ABC was just hoping to have the Americans within two goals in the third period to keep viewers. An outright victory seemed out of the question.
“With exactly 10 minutes to go, whoa, holy mackerel, is this possible? And then at that point the crowd is just going out of its mind.”
For Eruzione, who has been talking about that week in Lake Placid for four decades, the lesson is simple:
“You believe in miracles, you believe in working hard, you believe in sacrifice and anything can happen.”
As Olympic anniversary events continue in Lake Placid, a U.S. hockey team reunion is scheduled for today in Las Vegas.
