We had just gotten through the 1970s, which was a period of decline for America. Even more so than today, it was a period of depression and malaise. For we didn't have the high tech gadgets of today to at least keep us occupied and entertained. It was a drab existence for many, slogging off to work and coming home to a dinner of soggy meatloaf with a black and white TV showing 3 channels of utter dreck. No Internet, no media on demand, no trendy casual eating restaurants to go to. Nothing like that at all. Lowenbrau was as fancy as you got for beer (with a slight argument for Heineken). People would have parties at their house and have jello with lettuce in it and a "cocktail" would be jug wine mixed with Kool-Aid. A Peter Frampton album would be playing on the "hi-fi".
OK, so I set the scene. So enter 1980, right around the time that Ronald Reagan was starting to win some primaries and disco was finally declared to be dead. So you have the Olympics and our hockey team features these young kids who still mostly live with their parents, some of them still not out of high school. Remember that professional players were not yet allowed. Yet our team was going up against the Soviet Union version of NHL All-Stars. Grown men who had been playing hockey 10 hours a day, 10 months out of the year since they were toddlers.
The young kids find a way to beat these hardened veterans and all hell breaks loose in America. Like I said, you had to have been there to see what the big deal was.
Anyway, I was 18 years old (about the same age of the players) and lived close to Winthrop, MA at the time and I went over to see Mike Eruzione's homecoming parade. It was like The Beatles came to town. The streets were lined 20 deep with screaming fans for miles. And this scene was repeated across America for the other 20 or so players.
No wonder most of these players never played an NHL game. After that victory, there was nothing left to achieve that could have topped beating the Russians.
And I should mention that beating the Russians did NOT win the U.S. the gold medal. They still had to play Finland to get the gold. But amazingly, nobody remembers that! Yes, they beat Finland and won the gold but it was the victory over the Soviet Union that mattered most of all.
To me, that was the official kick-off of our modern age. The personal computer revolution was getting into full swing. Ronald Reagan was about to begin his 8 years in the White House and the U.S. economy was about to take off to new undreamed of heights.
I would love to go back to February of 1980 and live the past 34 years all over again!
Wiping tears from my eyes, Sam... wiping tears from eyes.
Some of those players were so good in college that Brooks deliberately set up their training and exhibition schedule so they'd be playing in Europe in the fall of 1979. This was done to ensure that they'd be out of the spotlight when NHL teams were in training camp, since many of these players had previously been drafted by NHL teams and Brooks didn't want them lured away from the Olympics by NHL scouts.
Joey Mullen was the one player Brooks wanted who didn't play on the team. I believe his father was sick at the time and the family needed money to pay medical bills, so he signed with the St. Louis Blues in 1979.
Don’t forget the peanut farmer was in the White House, saying that America would never be great again. The miracle on ice proved him wrong, and I think helped Ronald Reagan in highlighting the potential of Americans. I was 14 at the time and we were at the Illinois state swimming championship. When the score was announced the entire crowd stood up and sang the Star Spangled Banner. I will never forget that feeling, and we rushed home to watch the game on tape delay. On Sunday we watched the gold medal game live. It really drove home what it meant to be an American, and to show that we didn’t have to put up with a putz like Carter in office.
As I recall, the game wasn’t even broadcast live.......but I clearly remember Jim McKay teeing it up, he couldn’t contain his excitement, even though the game hadn’t been shown yet....But I remember there were rumblings even before that indeed the US had won, even though we couldn’t be completely sure until the game was broadcast.
Of course these days, it would be impossible to keep the result under wraps, like that.