Feb. 22, 1980 | U.S.A. Beats Soviet Union in ‘Miracle on Ice’

On Feb. 22, 1980, in an upset dubbed the “Miracle on Ice,” the United States hockey team defeated the Soviets, 4-3, at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. “Few victories in American Olympic play have provoked reaction comparable to tonight’s decision at the red-seated, smallish Olympic Field House,” wrote The New York Times. “At the final buzzer, after the fans had chanted seconds away, fathers and mothers and friends of the United Sates players dashed onto the ice, hugging anyone they could find in red, white and blue uniforms.”

The Soviet hockey team was the dominant team of amateur international hockey. It won four straight gold medals from 1964 to 1976, nearly defeated a team of Canada’s top professional players in 1972, and beat several N.H.L. teams in 1970s exhibition games. Many of the Soviet players were members of the Red Army, though they had few military responsibilities; the government allowed them to devote their lives to hockey, training together nearly year-round while retaining their amateur status. Canada and Sweden staged boycotts of Olympic hockey in protest of this “professional amateurism,” but such actions did nothing to change the rules.

The American team, on the other hand, was made up almost entirely of college players. Coach Herb Brooks, the last cut of the 1960 American team that won gold, drove the team hard in the six-month preparation for the Games. However, the difference between the United States and Soviet teams was made clear in an exhibition game just days before the Olympics when the Soviets won a 10-3 rout at Madison Square Garden.

The Americans played well in the first stage of the Olympics, registering four wins and a tie to advance to the medal round. The Soviets won all five games, averaging more than 10 goals a game. Few expected the United States to have a chance against the Soviets when the teams met in the first game of the medal round, but the Americans came out strong early; the “fans and players fed off one another in the festive atmosphere at the arena,” said The Times, as American players unleashed a “constant pressure of intimidating body checks.”

The first period ended tied, 2-2, after a last-second goal by the American Mark Johnson, capitalizing on a mistake by the legendary goaltender Vladislav Tretiak, who was replaced in the second period. The Soviets scored the only goal of the second, but the United States scored two quick goals midway through the third to take the lead. In the game’s final seconds, as it became clear that the United States would hold on for the victory, the ABC announcer Al Michaels famously exclaimed: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

The “Miracle on Ice” is often erroneously said to have been the gold medal game. Instead, the medals were determined by a four-team round robin that also included Sweden and Finland. The Americans defeated Finland two days later to clinch the gold medal; had they lost, the gold would have gone to the Soviets.

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Connect to Today:
The “Miracle on Ice” occurred during a difficult time for the United States, which was suffering through high unemployment, inflation, an energy crisis and the Iran Hostage Crisis. Furthermore, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, raising Cold War tensions. Many Americans were inspired by their hockey team’s victory. In a
2010 Op-Ed article, the New York Times sportswriter Gerald Eskenazi wrote that Coach Brooks “spoke passionately of creating an American style of hockey, a form of sport making use of capitalistic ideals — competition, exuberance, youth. Forget the past. This was a new era. It could have been a metaphor for an American template. Indeed, it was.”

In what ways could you compare the social, political and economic climate of 1979 and 1980 to today? How are things different today? Do you think another “Miracle on Ice,” or analogous victory could boost public morale in the United States today? Why or why not?

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