The Miracle on Ice: The Olympic win that shocked the world
As Cold War tensions worsened at the start of the 1980s, the US ice hockey team pulled off a stunning victory at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics.
Image: The U.S. hockey team pounces on goalie Jim Craig after a 4-3 victory against the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics | Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo
In 1980, the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union was still ongoing. So, it’s no surprise that when the American and Soviet hockey teams were set to clash at the Olympics, emotions were high.
Everyone expected the Soviet Union’s team to win. But they didn’t. Against all predictions, the USA’s team pulled off a stunning victory – a true miracle on ice.
Political tensions
Since the close of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had been pitted against one another in a battle of ideology and strength. Through the accumulation of nuclear armaments and proxy wars like the Korean War and the Vietnam War, these political superpowers fought for dominance.
At the start of the 1980s, the Cold War was no longer at the fever pitch that had seen the Cuban Missile Crisis unfold. But the US still generally saw the Soviet Union as its primary enemy. In fact, after a decade of reduced tensions and détente, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 had worsened the two foes’ relations again.
Therefore, when an ice hockey match between the pair began at the Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games in February 1980, the game represented much more than an ordinary sporting contest.
The players
When the two teams met on 22nd February 1980, both of them anticipated a victory for the Soviets.
For one thing, the Soviet players stepping onto the ice that day were highly trained, experienced, and internationally esteemed. And their team had a golden track record of wins. In the four previous Winter Olympics, they had won four gold medals – and suffered only one tied game and one loss in all that time. At the previous Olympics in Innsbruck, they won every single time they played.
In contrast, the US players were underdog amateurs. They were startlingly young – only 21 years old on average. What experience they had came from college or minor league games. They were not men who had dedicated their lives to the sport of ice hockey, as the Soviets were. They had not even expected to reach the medal round of the Olympics that year.
Moreover, the US team had actually played the Soviet team less than two weeks earlier at Madison Square Garden. On that day, the Americans were roundly defeated.
It's easy to see why no-one thought that the USA had the slightest chance of beating the Soviet Union at Lake Placid. But they did.
What caused the upset?
Today, many people credit the American team’s victory in large part to its coach, Herb Brooks. He was notoriously tough but deeply respected by his players.
One of his talents was understanding the psychological factors involved in the game. The opposing team’s captain, Boris Mikhailov, was renowned for his towering skill – and he had brought his side to victory in the two previous Olympic games.
Brooks understood that he needed to diminish Mikhailov in the eyes of his players. So, he told them repeatedly that Mikhailov looked like the comedy actor Stan Laurel. By the time they had to face Mikhailov, he was no longer intimidating – he was just half of the bumbling duo of Laurel and Hardy.
Of course, all of the American players on the ice that day deserve credit of their own. Some of them went on to see significant success in professional ice hockey. One, Neal Broten, even won the Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils NHL team in 1995.
Another factor might have been that Madison Square Garden match. Perhaps it made the Soviet players overconfident. If they’d beaten these same men so badly just recently, weren’t they sure to do it again?
How the Miracle on Ice unfolded
When Mike Eruzione, the US team captain, reminisced about the match, he said his men played with self-assurance right from the start.
But their victory wasn’t clinched right away. Through most of the match, the contest was pretty close, and the third and final period began with the Soviet Union ahead 3-2.
Then the USA gained another goal. And halfway through that final period, with just 10 minutes left on the clock, Eruzione scored another goal – putting his side into the lead.
In astonishment, the spectators watched as the Soviet Union failed to pull ahead. And in the final seconds of the game, commentator Al Michaels breathlessly counted down to an American victory, ending with the now famous line, 'Do you believe in miracles? Yes!'
His words gave the game its title – the Miracle on Ice.
The game’s impact
Understandably, the USA team’s stunning victory prompted great celebrations through the nation and made its players national heroes.
The US team still had to play one more game before their Olympics were over. On 24th February, they defeated Finland, winning the gold medal in the process. The Soviet Union had to settle for silver.
The Miracle on Ice is now considered to be one of the greatest sporting upsets in history. It even inspired a 2004 movie – named, appropriately, Miracle.
The outcome of the match was equally shocking to those in the Soviet Union. The team’s coach was furious, the players more than disappointed, though they were gracious losers on the day.
The Soviet Union made sure their defeat on the ice was not repeated. When their hockey team met the Americans in following years, the Soviets always won.
But more broadly, the Miracle on Ice can be seen as a key moment in the course of the Cold War and the world’s perception of the two foes involved in it. The Soviet Union had been seen as unbeatable, but they were beaten. If that could happen on the ice, couldn’t it also happen in a broader arena? Perhaps the Russians weren’t so intimidating after all.
In the decade following this legendary upset, Cold War hostilities did continue to ramp up somewhat under the Reagan administration. But Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost and perestroika helped calm things down. By 1991, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the Soviet Union was dissolved. The Cold War was over.
