30 years since the Miracle

In 1980 (6 years before I was born) a bunch of 19-25 year old American boys were heading to lake placid to play some older guys from around of the world, the USA team had no bussiness playing anyone but especially the Soviet (it would be like the UGA hockey team playing the capitals).They held try-outs and Coach Herb Brooks supposedly had his long list in the matter

of 1 or 2 days. He wanted boys he could mold using the school of thoughts and training used by many teams they would be playing against- I like that idea try beating people by copying their style. That's one of the main differences between the US team and the ugly Soviets- the Soviets trained and trained hard, our boys were relying on their talent. Another difference is that the Soviets played together for years , the Americans played against each other most of the time and maybe played with one of their Olypimic team mates in college. This little fact provided for a crazy moment in practice when Jack O Callahan cheap shot Rob Mcclanahan - which resulted in a fight. You see O' Callahan still had a gruge against Mcclanahan for cheap shooting him in college and "stealing the championship ring" off his finger. The Olympics would test these boys but the nation needed a distraction and hope, the whole world did. The Soviets and the US were in the middle of a cold war and the Soviets had invaded Afaghanistan which caused people to think that the Soviets wouldn't show up but they were favorites to win. The world was insane and alot of what the world was going through is what we are going through or what we have been through recently (remember the gas "outtage" of 2008, yeah there was one in 1980 too). The Soviets had only lost 1 gold medal since 1956 and that was to the US in 1960. The Soviets were classed as amateurs but a lot of the players were professionals. They were crazythey won at least 5 of the 9 games they played against NHL teams. When Soviets played the US for an exahibition game and won 10-3. It was a different story in the Olympics, the boys beat Czechosloviakia (7-3), Norway (5-1), Romania (7-2), West germany (4-2) and tied Sweden all coming from behind of course. As for the Soviets they beat Japan (16-0), Poland (8-1), Finland (4-2), and Canada (6-4). When the 2 teams met USA fell behind quickly but of course ended up performing the miracle by winning 4-3. Our boys went on to beat Finland (coming from behind yet again) to win the gold medal. To honor the miracle I was going to profile a few key boys and the amazing coach who somewhere around 2002 passed away. This is for them!