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30 for 30 - USA/Russia 1980 Olympics

NoleMoreTears

Seminole Insider
Oct 21, 2002
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Not sure if anyone caught the "Of Miracles and Men" documentary?

Fascinating stuff about the experience from the Russian side. I knew they hated Tikhanov (the coach) but did not understand why as much as I do now.

For any hockey fan who hasn't gone, the 1980 rink is a must-see. It's really not changed a bit (aka fallen into disrepair) and just walking in there you can picture the moments. The town is basically the same and we all know there will never be another Olympics like it.

I recently had a team play an exhibition there and we got the locker room next to the one Team USA was in...it was dingy, smelly, dilapidated, and totally amazing.
 
I watched it and it was just as I expected. When I get a chance, I will add more commentary.

One thing that stuck out was how many myths were/are out there. Several people tell us they knew exactly where they were when the US beat the Soviets, another myth is that a lot of people keep telling us that the US beat RUSSIA, in the medal round--first of all, it was the Soviet Union, not Russia, and the US beat the Soviets in the "final round", not the semis, as the Soviets lost to the US and then beat Sweden for the silver medal, as the US beat Finland in the final game for both teams, but it wasn't the gold medal game as many still believe. Finland did not medal at all.

I think the biggest myth is that people watched the game live, in prime time, in a bar, or on their couch.........., but the game was aired in prime time via tape delay, as the actual game took place in the late afternoon, and because of the magnitude of the upset, the game was shown via tape delay. I can't remember, but i believe that ABC did not plan to televise the game at all, thinking that the Soviets would crush the US, like they did a few weeks earlier at Madison Square Garden in a tune up game just before the Olympics.

You know, I hate the term "Miracle" when describing that USA team, but I can't think of a better word to use to describe the Yanks. The Soviets were a team that trained and played together 11 months out of the year, and the players were much older, as the US players were just growing into their "man" bodies, the Soviets were well past that stage, and athletically they were much more advanced and mature. I believe the Soviets came up with the term "dry ice" training, when they trained during the off seasons when there was no ice to play on and the training was more brutal than any ice training, and the documentary showed that the Soviet players couldn't wait for ice training because the dry ice training was so brutal and challenging, made Navy SEAL training look like Cub Scout hiking training.

I can buy into the "Miracle" term even more now, after watching the documentary and learning that a year before, in 1979, that same Soviet team played a team of international NHL players that included 19 Canadians and 3 Swedes. The NHL won game 1, 4-2 and the Soviets won game 2, 5-4. Game 3 was dominated by the Soviets 6-0. The series was played in February, so the NHL'ers were in mid season shape and form.

This team of NHL All-Stars had the home ice advantage at Madison Square Garden, even though there were no US born players on the NHL roster. Now here is the part where I buy into the USA being a "Miracle" team, the NHL roster had 20 f*cking NHL Hall of Famers on their roster!! The Soviets destroyed the home team, with 20 NHL Hall of Famers, by a score of 6-0.

Twenty NHL Hall of Famers were destroyed by the Soviets, but yet a bunch of 21 year olds, from Babbitt, Scituate, Winthrop, Madison and every other small town in Minnesota beat this Soviet Red Army. Now, I've not only accepted the term "Miracle", I can't accept any other term when describing the upset win!!!

After "Four Days in October", this is my second favorite ESPN 30 for 30!
 
The doc also did a respectable job on the Summit Series. That was some crazy stuff right there. I know a couple guys who played on the Canadian side and said it was the most intense action of their lives.

Soviets were amazing in their work ethic and made plays with vastly inferior equipment and basically no national heritage from which to draw. The essentially came up with their own version of hockey independently.
 
The segment about the first series or set of games in Montreal was crazy. I couldn't believe how dirty the NHL players got. Bobby Clark hacking guys in the ankles.

It's crazy to think a bunch of college players played that Russian team and won to this day. Truly as stated a "miracle". I wish I was alive then.
 
Eclipsed only by David Vs. Goliath in terms of all time upsets....


Great doc. I still enjoy watching the Red's squirm when 1980 is brought up. They believe all the cards were against them - that is humorous. They trained at levels comparable to an elite military group.

This would be like taking the greatest up and coming players in Canada - lets say the 1982 NHL stars from Canada - have them train like Airborne Rangers for 11 months on top of grueling Hockey training. How good would THAT team be after about 5 years?


Yeah - that was the kind of team a bunch of college kids beat in 1980.

If you watch any of those other matchups vs. NHL teams, all start teams, etc. you always see the Soviet's outskating the NHL'ers - our game was just not played at the same speed at the time. The college kids matched the intensity and skating and caught the Reds....way off guard. The game before at the garden was far worse than the score indicated from my long memory of that game.

I was actually ice skating at a local rink and at around 8pm people at the rink started saying we beat the Russians which we did not believe. I ran home and caught the game from the end of the first until the end.

I have dvd copies of both the Russian game and the Gold medal game - taken from a espn re-broadcast in the early 80's.
 
I still watch the game when it's on, and I still get nervous and pace, 35 years later, when the US takes the lead at 10:00 of the 3rd period and fought like hell to hold on!

Jim Craig, goaled medalist!!!!!!
 
I watched the 30 for 30 again, and with the condition that they Soviets were in, and that's not including any PED's they were on at the time, it is incredible that any team could skate with them for 60 minutes.

I'd Bobby Clarke them all, too!
 
What a great documentary!! I watched it last week while I was in Anaheim. To see how the Russians still felt was pretty awesome. To see the fight that Fetisov went through to get off the team and some on the team felt he was a traitor, was pretty crazy. Tikhanov was an ass from all accounts. I love how some of the guys straight out blame him for the lack of preparation because he thought they could not get beat, and then he pulled Tretiak, which was a pretty dumb move.

By the way, Fetisov's daughter is ridiculously hot.
 
Originally posted by Manch.:
I watched the 30 for 30 again, and with the condition that they Soviets were in, and that's not including any PED's they were on at the time, it is incredible that any team could skate with them for 60 minutes.

I'd Bobby Clarke them all, too!
Amazing they were still technically amateurs. It's true: they were provided room, board, coaching, equipment, and a small stipend, just like the USA.

But we all know the Russian team was a group of professionals. They couldn't leave their country to play, they didn't have a pro league at home to speak of, they didn't get paid, but it was a professional team.
 
Just watched this last night and even though I don;t care for hockey I found it to be very good. I feel bad for some of those guys who were not able to play professionally somewhere else. Being forced to act like government property because they know if given the opportunity most would bolt isn't right at all.

I think playing on home ice was a huge advantage for Team USA so I wonder if the Olympics were somewhere else and the Soviet Union won, how would that have changed the 80's decade for some of those guys. It's a shame some decided to quit rather than be forced to train 11 months a year for a coach they hated.
 
Originally posted by Nolebra Kai:
Just watched this last night and even though I don;t care for hockey I found it to be very good. I feel bad for some of those guys who were not able to play professionally somewhere else. Being forced to act like government property because they know if given the opportunity most would bolt isn't right at all.

I think playing on home ice was a huge advantage for Team USA so I wonder if the Olympics were somewhere else and the Soviet Union won, how would that have changed the 80's decade for some of those guys. It's a shame some decided to quit rather than be forced to train 11 months a year for a coach they hated.
Some guys did make it to the league, eventually. It is a shame it took so long. Fetisov was a stalwart, Larionov played forever, and Kasatanov was a very solid D man.

Although it would appear they were indentured servants, they got what was effectively celebrity treatment in the old USSR. They had access to things few Soviets would ever dream of. It's just that celebrity treatment over there was still quite shabby by western standards.

There is no doubt the game being in the USA was a huge factor. IMO not so much by Soviets doubting themselves but by the kids' increased confidence.
 
I might be mistaken, but wasn't that the game where a crowd for the first time, predominately used the "USA, USA, USA" chant? And if this is true, Herb Brooks told the team before the 3rd period that "this is what you have done to them".

The Soviets did receive preferred treatment back in the USSR. They had nice cars, nice condos, made a decent Russian wage and were given military exemptions in some cases, their military duty was light and very limited.

If that game is played in Torino, I believe the Soviets would have won.

This is a classic example that if you let the underdog hang around long enough, it builds the confidence in the 'dog, they realize that "heck, we are just one goal away from winning!" and that is huge as compared to being down 5-2.
Originally posted by NoleMoreTears:

There is no doubt the game being in the USA was a huge factor. IMO not so much by Soviets doubting themselves but by the kids' increased confidence.
I honestly believe that even more than the home ice advantage and the "USA" chants, the Yanks feasted off of Vladislav Tretiak being pulled. Tretiak was believed to be Ken Dryden x 1,000, he was literally believed to be a brick wall with just a hole big enough for the puck to get through, and that whole was moving around at light speed.

Again, this was all beliefs, and when the USA realized that because of the way they played, Tretiak was pulled, and if the USA can put two past that brick wall, they believed they could put a few more pucks past God's backup. Tikhonov doubted Tretiak and the other Soviets skaters were all in disbelief and they doubted themselves and Brook's Boys could smell that doubt and they fed themselves a big plate of confidence as the sharks didn't smell a drop of Soviet blood, they smelled an arena full of Soviet blood and went for the kill. Their attitude wasn't survive and advance at this point, their attitude was kill and win!

The job that Herb Brooks did was the same job that Jim Valvano did with NC State, times 1,000 and IMO, perhaps the greatest coaching job in the history of sports. Again, I knew the outcome of the game and for exactly the last 10 minutes of play, I wanted to throw up as I was so nervous. Today, I still can't sit still and watch the game, and with every save that Goaled Medal Jim Craig makes, I still can't believe he made the save and somehow, the end of the game will be edited and the Soviets win, much like the 1972 hoops saga.

And let's not forget how selfish that Brooks was when he took the job, he wanted to win for himself, for being the last player cut from the 1960 gold medal winners, he thought team was spelled B-R-O-O-K-S. His attitude changed, and with that change, then did the great coaching that is now folklore come forward. Craig Patrick! Enough has never been said about the job that he did and that has to be one of the biggest injustices in the history of coaching!

Am I the only poster here, that when Al Michaels bellows ........."5 seconds left in the game, DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES..........YES!!!!!!!!!!! followed by a minute of silence except for the crowd, that I not only get goose bumps, but I get actual tears in my eyes!

This post was edited on 3/13 5:51 PM by Manch.
 
Manch - have you been to the 1908 rink? If not, you absolutely have to go. Lake Placid is pretty nice in the summer. There's a little spot near the upper bleachers (still just wood benches) that has a constant replay of the last 30 seconds and Al's call. You can even climb up to his little "press box."

The rink is just as it was...and you'll get more than goose bumps! I worked with a team played an exhibition and we got the locker room next to the one team USA had for the semis. You could smell the atmosphere, it was amazing, 32 years later.

Herbie was apparently a complicated guy. Craig Patrick, whom I've been lucky to know a little bit, was the exact opposite. A perfect good cop/bad cop coaching combination. Craig did an incredible job.

Still the greatest sports story in American history.
 
NMT, I went to Cooperstown when I was 13, back in 1983 and I was in awe. I plan on getting back there someday, as I am sure that I will be more in awe this time.

When I head out, I'll make sure to take the 3 hour drive from Cooperstown to Lake Placid. I have read that LP is a beautiful place.

Also, you of all people just made a classic mistake! The USA/USSR game was not the semi's, it was the 2nd game of the "medal round" group play for each team. The US beat Finland in the final game for both teams, and the Fins did not medal (many believed that the Fins had won the silver), The Soviets beat Sweden for the silver and the Swedes took the bronze.

The top 2 teams from each division moved on the final round. The US and Sweden tied in the blue division with 9 points each and they tied 2-2 when they went head to head.

The USSR won the red division and Finland took 2nd place as they tied Canada with 6 points each, but the Fins held the tiebreaker by beating Canada head to head 4-3. The Soviets beat Finland 4-2.

So, for the final round, each team played one another once, with the head to head match ups that were already played between teams in the same division counting in the standings.

So going into the final round, the standings were as follows:

Team W--L--T GF GA PTS.
USSR 1-0-0 4 2 2
Sweden 0-0-1 2 2 1
USA 0-0-1 2 2 1
Finland 0-1-0 2 4 0

If Finland would have beaten the USA on that last day (USSR/Sweden was actually the last game played and turned out to be the silver/bronze medal game with Finland already eliminated from medal contention after losing to the USA), the Soviets would have won the gold, and Finland would have won the silver and the USA would have won the bronze (of course that's with the Soviet/Sweden score holding up).



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This post was edited on 3/13 6:34 PM by Manch.
 
Thanks Manch! I forgot about that and wondered a few days ago why Russia could get silver despite losing in "the semis." Wouldn't happen today. I totally forgot they used to do it that way.

Enjoy the 1980 rink when you get there. And Schill's bloody sock
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