Last night, Suzan and I watched Miracle, the story of the 1980 U.S. Olympics Hockey team which beat the presumably unbeatable Soviet team at the height of the Cold War, then went on to beat the almost-as-good Finland team to win the Gold Metal. It’s widely recognized as the greatest moment in the history of American sports.
I was 6 years old, a first grader, on that cloudy day in February. I didn’t know anything about hockey, and even less about the Olympics. I remember liking the theme song and being sad when my Mom told me I’d only hear it on TV once every four years.
Back then, we had an old set with VHF anf UHF dials and rabbit ears that sat awkwardly on a cart in what passed as our living room. My dad sat glued to every game while I drifted in and out, curious what all the fuss was about but mostly to play with my toy trucks at my father’s feet.
Sadly, I have no memory of the great upset over the Russian team, the “Miracle on Ice” as it would be known in books, a TV Movie and by sportscaster Al Michaels, who with 5 seconds left, and the young American team leading 4-3, screamed “Do you believe in miracles?” and then answered himself. “Yes!”
I do remember the Gold Metal. I remember when center Mark Johnson, the high scorer on the team, scored the last goal of the game, putting the US ahead 4-2. I remember my dad, not an animated man, screaming “It’s 4-2!, It’s 4-2!” and explaining thhat that meant that our team, us, America, were going to win it all.
I learned about the Soviet game, the Cold War dimension and the tension the nation felt over the hostages in Iran much later when I discovered a box of paperback books about the victory in our basement. My dad told me he had ordered several cases of books to give out to kids in the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey leagues and these were the leftovers.
I took one for myself and for months poured over the pictures and players roster in the back, memorizing names, positions, and statistics. Bill Baker, Steve Christoff, Ken Morrow, Mike Eruzione, Mark Pavelich and Goaltender Jim Craig. About half of them went onto the NHL and for years afterward, I would ask my dad whenever he watched hockey, “Any guys here from the olympic team?” My favorite of them, Neil Broton, played 17 years in the pros and was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2000.
When Miracle came out, my dad and I bonded over it. He told me that I started asking him about playing hockey myself soon after that game and joined the Mite league the next fall. I played for 6 years and both my brothers after me. My dad, who had been interested in hockey growing up watching Gordie Howe play for the Detroit Red Wings in the 1950s, became a fan with renewed vigor and later served as president of the Ann Arbor Amateur Hockey Association.
Herb Brooks, coach of the 1980 team, died just before the film came out. My dad told me that Brooks, the signleminded hardass and no one’s idea of a sweetheart, was one of his heroes. It was the first time I’d ever heard my father say that about anyone.
“I think it was the strength of his convictions,” my dad said last night when I called him. “There’s something about someone who believes something can be done and stops at nothing to make it happen.”
I watched the last few minutes of the movie again this morning and remembered what I felt like on that day, even though my memories of why are completely different from my father’s. On that day, I felt like that victory, of 20 younger, smaller guys, whom no one believed in, belonged also to me, to my father, to all of us. That we could all celebrate together, despite our differences, despite why were there in the first place, was nothing short of a miracle.
