Salem Press

The Eighties in America offers comprehensive coverage of the impact of the 1980's on the United States and Canada. With free, unlimited online access to all the "Decades" titles in your collection.

Miracle on Ice
The U.S. ice hockey team was a lightly regarded squad, consisting largely of current and former college players, yet its stellar play against older and more experienced teams, highlighted by its stunning upset of the highly favored team from the Soviet Union, led to one of Olympic hockey's most unlikely victories.

The "miracle on ice."

The U.S. hockey team had won only a single Olympic medal since 1960 going into the 1980 Winter Olympics, and the 1980 squad appeared to have little chance of adding to that total. The team had lost to the Soviet Union 10 to 3 in a pre-Olympic exhibition game, and it was placed in a preliminary pool with the highly regarded teams from Sweden and Czechoslovakia. In its opening match, however, it stayed close to the Swedes throughout the contest and scored a goal in the game's final minute to salvage a 2-2 tie. Two days later, the United States surprised the Czechs in a lopsided 7-3 victory, then went on to complete pool play with relatively easy wins over Norway, Romania, and West Germany.

Though the team had played well throughout the tournament under the leadership and inspiration of coach Herb Brooks, its first match in the medal round, on February 22 against the Soviet Union, was not expected to be close. The Soviets had won four straight gold medals and had beaten their opponents in pool play by a combined score of 51 to 11. However, the first period of the U.S.-Soviet match ended with the score tied at two goals apiece after a last second goal by the United States. The Soviet coach responded by pulling his star goalie from the game, replacing him with the backup goalie. The change helped shut down the U.S. squad until nearly halfway through the third period, when a U.S. goal tied the score at 3 to 3. Less than two minutes later, another goal gave America its first lead of the game, and the U.S. defense, led by goalie Jim Craig, held off a furious Soviet assault to complete the stunning 4-3 victory, prompting sportscaster Al Michaels's famous comment, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"