Posted on 02/22/2025 12:58:58 PM PST by Alberta's Child
i never understood why the Soviets never pulled their goalie in that game. They also never did it in the 1984 and 1987 Canada Cup series....odd.
Some of those European coaches also did detailed statistical analyses of hockey games to see if the odds really changed in their favor under different scenarios. I remember reading an article in Hockey Digest magazine in the early 1990s where the author suggested that pulling the goalie late in the game was NOT an effective strategy -- based on his analysis that said a team in that scenario is more likely to give up an empty-net goal than score the tying goal.
There's one hockey coach in recent years -- it may have been the German or Austrian coach at the 2018 Winter Olympics -- who would pull the goalie and put a sixth skater on the ice whenever his team had a two-man advantage with two opposing players in the penalty box. I think it usually worked out for him, as it is damn near impossible for the defending team to clear the puck out of their zone when they have three skaters playing against six.
Best underdog victory in all sports. I wish they would go back to just amateurs playing in the Olympics
I enjoyed the movie with Kurt Russell.
I hear ya.
I’ve seen it about 25 times. LOL.
AGAIN
That’s a great book. I’ve read it twice.
I got to wear the 1980 Olympic ring of assistant coach Craig Patrick one time. This guy had a bunch of hardware from his hockey days, including a couple of Stanley Cup rings, but he said the Olympic ring was has favorite.
Those Russians were no amateurs. They were as professional as any NHL team in fact they could beat any NHL team. That’s what made a bunch of college kids beating them in the Olympics a miracle on ice.
Kurt Russel version
Saw it yesterday. Just great
1. That U.S. team was better than anyone realized at the time. Some of those players had long, solid NHL careers after that.
2. The Soviet team wasn’t as good as people think they were. They look great on paper even now, but most of their top players were either past their prime or very young and not yet at the top of their game (and would later become stars of the USSR national team from 1984 through the late 1980s).
3. The Soviets simply took the Americans lightly, and were caught completely unprepared to play a young, talented, energetic team that had been built specifically to beat them.
I think the U.S. team was trailing at some point of every game in the tournament. They were built for endurance over a full game, and never panicked when they were behind.
I think by winning they would too. :)
Just before the Olympics started, the Soviets beat the USA 10-3 — TEN TO THREE, in a hockey game! — in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden. I think they had every right to be overconfident.
Years later, Soviet players said in interviews that the first five minutes of the Olympic game was a real learning experience for them. They thought the U.S. brought different players to Lake Placid than the ones they played against at MSG … because they were so much better and more energetic.
It is an odd coincidence of history that another event that helped recharge American patriotism in the 1980s happened only 24 hours after the Miracle on Ice, and only a couple hundred miles from Lake Placid: Reagan’s demolition of Bush at the Nashua debate, which flipped the NH primary and the Republican campaign. “I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!!”
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