[Happy Rain]

I was a hockey fanatic one time...

...but then ALL of America (except the evil Left of course) were hockey freaks when Team USA stomped the Soviets in 1980...if the NHL could somehow reproduce that kind of interest in the game...perhaps the league should recruit pro wresting promoters.

[kearnyirish2]

I saw the Soviet Central Red Army beat the NJ Devils like 6-1 in the early 1980s (many of those Soviet players ended up in the NHL); when the Devils scored their one goal the place erupted as though they won the Stanley Cup.

I wasn’t yet 10 when the US beat the USSR in Lake Placid, but I remember it (my parents’ reaction to it).

[Alberta's Child]

Actually, very few Americans were hockey fans back in 1980. The U.S. Olympic team got almost no public attention at all until after they had beaten Czechoslovakia in the second game of the preliminary round and it was clear to a lot of people that the U.S. team was much better than anyone had expected.

The USA-USSR game in the medal round wasn't even broadcast live. Anyone who watched it on TV saw a tape-delay broadcast after the game was already over.

Even the game announcers recognized how few Americans were hockey fans. I think it was Al Michaels who suggested that most of the spectators didn't know the difference between a blue line and a clothesline. LOL.