I don’t care anything about hockey but despite that I really enjoyed that game. Enjoyed it from start to finish.
They actually beat Finland for the gold 2 days after they upset Russia. The final was 4-2.
IMHO the biggest upset in the history of sports.
They didn’t win the Gold when they beat the USSR, they still had to beat Finland to get the Gold.
The US-Sweden tie in the first round carried over. The US beat the Soviets in their first game in the finals round. They won the gold by beating Finland so had a 2-0-1 record.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockey_at_the_1980_Winter_Olympics
No headline on SI said more than anything that could have been written.
Media reported that the USSR team wasn’t the real deal and that they were like some second string team we beat.
Never forget that day. We were in Alaska, and didn’t get anything live then; shows had to be flown up from Seattle. I was talking to my sister in the Lower 48 who was watching it live. I said, “Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me.” She told me. Still, when I saw it, it was beautiful. (And I don’t like sports at all.)
It was the first time I cried over sports.
This was 38 years ago. What have white men Americans done lately to distinguish themselves? Made social media sites and positioned Amazon to put others out of business? Is that all there is? Cue up Ms Peggy Lee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=LCRZZC-DH7M
I watched it live!
I was in Austria on a high school ski trip. Game started at around midnight. Best Olympic moment for the USA evah!
ABC carried the game on tape delay in the USA. I watched the game in Detroit on a Canadian station so I knew the result live, but on Detroit TV the local anchorman Bill Bonds (during the prime time showing) came on during a commercial break and said the US beat the Soviets...thereby ruining the ending for viewers all across southeast Michigan!
I found a laminated ticket stub from that game in an apartment storage area. Wish I’d kept it...
I was on a plane over the Atlantic, and the pilot kept updating people on the score. When he announced the final result there was utter pandemonium. Everyone was hugging each other and celebrating. Great moment as Americans. And God we needed it right then under the doom of Carter and the Cold War we seemed to be losing.
At the time we were going to boycott the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviets, obviously, did not want that. I also saw the Red Army team make minced meat out of the NY Rangers - we’re talking a good NHL team at the time. And so now, in the 1980 Winter Olympics, the same Soviet team is basically playing a bunch of college kids thrown together by the United States (due to our requirement that they be ‘amateurs’ to compete in the Olympics).
Given the above, I will always believe that the game was intentionally thrown by the Soviets, to try to get us to go to Moscow, and Americans were buying into it, to some extent, wanting to go to Moscow (which we did not).
I know that I’m in a small minority, but for most Americans, hockey wasn’t even on their radar - but for me at the time, I watched every game that I could - winning this game by basically a pick-up team of kids never made any sense to me.
I remember that.
It was AWESOME.
The movie *Miracle* is about that is really a good movie, in spite of knowing how it’s going to end.
One of the things that made it so enjoyable is that it’s clean and family friendly.
Ther’s virtually NOTHING I would censor out of that movie for a kid to watch.
Best Olympic moment ever.
Watch our trailer for “Patriot’s History” (about 4 min) at www.rockinthewallstudios.com
You’ll like the ending.