The Greatest Moment in American Sports History

It was on February 22, 1980 that a group of amateur and college hockey players on the United States ice hockey team went against the heavily-favored Soviet Union at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Some of the United States players did sign to play in the National Hockey League for the coming season. The Soviet players were classified as amateur players, but many of them played in a well-developed professional league with great training facilities. Furthermore, the Soviet Union had gone 3-4-1 against an NHL All-Star squad, and even beat teams like the New York Rangers and Islanders in exhibition games. Just before the upcoming competition, the two teams met in an exhibition in preparation for the games as the Soviet Union won handily, 10-3. So the United States chances of pulling off an upset against the powerful Soviets looked next to impossible.

The rivalry between the two countries reached its peak during that year which added more drama to the contest they were playing in. The Cold War between the two countries helped escalate the bad blood between them. Also, the United States was seriously considering a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Eventually, U.S. President Jimmy Carter decided to boycott those Olympics in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

In group play, the United States started out with a 2-2 tie against a good Sweden squad. Then they won the next four games with the one draw to advance to the medal round. The Soviets dominated their opposition in group play winning all the games they played to advance to the medal round. The other two teams that advance were Finland and Sweden.

U.S. coach Herb Brooks was tough-minded and often confrontational man who believed in hard practices and berating players if they did not perform like he wanted them to. Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov went against Brooks' thinking by resting his star players believing that studying and analyzing plays was more important rather than playing meaningless minutes in a game.

Unless you were watching the game on Canadian television, the U.S. had to wait to see the game as they had a late-afternoon tape delayed game between Finland and Sweden, which Finland won. The crowd was in a fever pitch from the start as American flags and patriotic songs were heard throughout the arena.

In the early going of the game, the Soviets jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Vladimir Krutov deflected a slap shot by Aleksei Kasatonov that U.S. goaltender Jim Craig could not stop. The U.S. came back to tie the score in the first period when Buzz Schneider got them on the board. The Soviets quickly took back the lead when Sergei Makarov got a shot past Craig.

Craig then had to turn away many shots late in the first period from the Soviets in order to keep the game from getting out of hand. The United States then got a break when Dave Christian fired a shot at Vladislav Tretiak, who many considered the greatest goaltender in the world at the time. But Tretiak saved the shot, but could not stop the rebound from getting in front of the goal for Mark Johnson to scoop it up in the net to tie the score at two a piece with a second remaining in the first period. The Soviets were frustrated by this as only three players on their team remained on the ice in the final second of the period.

That last goal by the U.S. prompted Tikhonov to put in backup goaltender Vladimir Myshkin to replace Tretiak. Many people were surprised at this switch by the Soviets as Tretiak was considered to be the best goaltender in the world at the time. The switch did work at first after the United States was held scoreless in the second period as the Soviets took back the lead Aleksandr Maltsev scored on a power play goal to give them a 3-2 edge.

The U.S. once again got a goal from Mark Johnson close to nine minutes into the final period as they tied the score at three a piece. About two minutes later, Mike Eruzione received a pass from Mark Pavelich as he was left all alone in the high slot. Myshkin was screened by a teammate, and Eruzione's shot got past him to give the U.S. the lead for the first time in the contest.

Craig withstood a fury of Soviet shots on goal in the remaining minutes, but they could not tie the score. The Soviets did not choose to add an extra attacker by removing the goalie from the game which came as a surprise to some. The United States had a hard time clearing the puck out of their own zone, but managed to do so with seven seconds remaining in the game. The crowd began to countdown the seconds, and ABC announcer Al Michaels made the famous call: "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" You can hear the fans chanting, "USA! USA! USA!" in closing seconds and long after the horn went off.

This would later be referred to as the "Miracle on Ice". The United States would go onto win the gold medal by defeating Finland, 4-2, in the finals. The Soviets defeated Sweden to win the bronze medal.

Many media outlets including ESPN and Sports Illustrated dubbed this game as the best moment in sports in the 20th Century. Two movies about this game have been released. The first was in 1981 called, Miracle on Ice, which aired on television and later in theaters. That movie had Karl Malden playing coach Brooks and Steve Guttenberg playing Craig. In 2004, Miracle was released in theaters. This time, Kurt Russell played coach Brooks.

This was in my opinion not only the best moment in U.S. sports history, but also the proudest moment in American sports. With years of bad blood and the invincibility of the Soviets on the ice in those days, the game was bittersweet and made us all believe that miracles can happen. We believed, and the U.S. team gave it to us.