On the 35th anniversary of ‘The Miracle on Ice,’ Spencer Dryden explains, goal-by-goal, what that game teaches us not just about hockey, but about life.
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February 22, 1980. You know the lore, even if you weren’t old enough to remember the game. A group of US amateurs defeated the Russian hockey machine at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid New York.
I do remember the day and the game. The second version of “Miracle” starring Kurt Russell did a good job setting the back drop. The country was in a terrible protracted recession. American Industry was collapsing, the Japanese were eating our lunch, inflation was rampant and an Imam from Iran had captured people from our embassy and had held them hostage. We we powerless to free them. Our national psyche was at an all time low. It was still a time when we thought the Russians might win the Cold War.
Back then the Olympics were politics played out without guns. There was no bigger set of guns than the vaunted Russian hockey team. They had won six of the last seven Olympics in hockey. On a Friday afternoon in a forgotten little town of Lake Placid, New York, a group of armatures unseated a dominant Soviet team in an event which has since been labelled, “The Miracle on Ice.” It was.
So much has been written and recorded about that day that the facts have been lost in legend:
It was so unlikely that the USA would win, the game was played on a Friday afternoon and scheduled for rebroadcast that evening.
Only a week or so before the US team had been flattened by the same Russian team 10-3 in a warm up. There was little hope.
Well you know the rest of the story.
I saw the game at a bar on delayed broadcast. Everyone there knew that the USA had won, but it still seemed so improbable, maybe the news was wrong. The mood at the bar was utter hysteria at every scoring opportunity. We only knew the US had won, we didn’t know anything else. The end couldn’t have been more dramatic.
The game has been broken down and analyzed from a hundred viewpoints. Hockey has changed so much, it’s hard to appreciate the technical challenges facing the US team. Still, all these years later, there are learning moments that can be drawn from each of the four goals the US team scored.
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Goal #1
Lesson: Shoot the Puck
At the time when the puck was dropped, the Soviet goalie Vlasidlav Tretiak was universally regarded as the best goaltender in the world. An unscreened shot from the blue line was about the last thing you could expect to go by him. But that’s exactly what Buz Schneider did to tie the score in the first period. It wasn’t supposed to be possible to score unscreened from that far out on the living legend of goaltending. Schneider took the shot and scored.
Wayne “The Great One” Gretzky has said the scoring percentage on shots not taken is zero.
Take the shot. Submit the bid, ask for the date, apply for the job, send the book proposal. You just might score. But one thing is for sure you won’t score unless you take the shot.
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Goal# 2
Lesson: Skate to the Whistle
With the USA trailing 2-1 and time expiring in the first period, Dave Christian shot a puck the length of the ice in a desperate attempt to score. Typically, at the end of a period, players head toward the gates in the waning seconds. Not Mark Johnson. He streaked toward d the goal. Tretiak badly misplayed the puck, Johnson knifed between two defenders scooped up the puck and put it into the goal with less that a second remaining, tying the score. Johnson was trained by his father, legendary college hockey coach Bob Johnson to skate all the way to the whistle.
Skate to the whistle. Work the full shift, do your job to the end, show up every day ready to work.
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Goal #3
Lesson: Keep pressing
The Russians dominated the second period having replaced Tretiak with Vladimir Myshkin in what would be later regarded as one of the worst coaching decisions ever made in sports. Myshkin was a wall but basically unchallenged in the second period.
In the third period leading 3-2, the Russians received a rare penalty. The USA wasn’t able to get much going on the power play but just as the penalty was expiring Dave Silk was knocked off his feet trying to put a shot toward the goal. Typically at the end of a power play the skaters are coached to get off the ice to change shifts. With the game entering a critical phase, Mark Johnson kept pressing in the offensive zone. The shot headed toward the goaltender as the penalty expired and in a moment right out of Squirt Hockey a Russian defensemen jumped in front of the goalie to intercept the puck and start a rush, but the puck dropped off his stick right on Johnson’s who easily guided it past Myshkin. The score is tied on two ‘gifts’ scored by Johnson.
Keep pressing, your opponents might just fold, you might make the break through discovery or land the sale.
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Goal # 4
Lesson: Sometimes the stars just all line up in your favor
Barely 90 seconds later Mike Eruzione jumps into the play in the offensive zone, takes a pass and scores the shot heard around the world. A shot that proved to be the game winner, changed the course of US hockey, and some say helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency. I’m not sure about that one but it made for a new day in America. But by hockey fundamentals it wasn’t a great shot. Eruzione was skating backward, his weight was on the wrong foot and he wasn’t at a good shooter’s angle. It was was dribbler rather than a laser. It should have been an easy kick save, but he got just enough of a screen from the Russian defenseman that it handcuffed Myshkin and—well you’ve seen the pictures and the replay a thousand times. Eruzione Scores!
If you do all the right stuff, some times the universe lines up for you and not against you. You get the break, the lucky bounce. The harder you try, the luckier you’ll get. There is no disorder in the universe when it’s your day.
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Never mind it was another ten agonizing minutes of furious hockey before Al Michaels would utter the iconic: “Do You Believe in Miracles?” To paraphrase what Herb Brooks told his players before the game, ‘Today is your day. You were meant to be here.’
It’s still true today, and you don’t have to be a hockey player or ‘even know the difference between a blue line and a clothes line’ (Al Michaels) to learn from this miraculous victory 35 years ago on a Friday afternoon in Lake Placid.
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Photo Credit: Bing Videos/Screen Capture