A Miracle Anniversary

45 Years Ago Today, We Learned Miracles Can Happen

I hate the Russians.

Yes, I know “hate” is a strong word. And, if Tom Brady and Snoop are to believed, “hate” is something we need to eradicate. And, on the whole, I agree with that sentiment.

But, I still hate a lot of things. I hate cantaloupe. I hate littering. I hate being late for anything. I absolutely hate the food at Chipotle, which I like to call “Safe, so-called “Mexican” food for people who are afraid of real Mexican food.” Like at the taqueria near my house. Or, that taco stand outside of Home Depot. Some of the best goddamn Mexican food I have ever had has come from after picking up a load of 50-pound decorative garden stones at the Emeryville, California, Home Depot.

And right there at the top of my Hate List is Russia.

I can’t help it. This is a country that over the last however many hundreds of years has been ruled by brutal and stupid inbred monarchs, brutal and stupid paranoid communists, and, currently, a brutal and stupid strongman who would like to reclaim Alaska. The only leader that could even be considered “good” in Russian history was a guy who had his army’s tanks fire on his own parliament building, and was so drunk that he became part of a brief, but hilarious bit on the Simpsons.

I grew up a kid of the Cold War, so my hatred of the Russians, or, to be more precise back in the day, the Soviet Union, was based on the simple fact that those were the Bad Guys. They were commies. They wanted to take over the world. And, they were also the best ice hockey players on the planet.

That was until February 22, 1980. The Hostages had been in captivity in Tehran for just over two months. The economy was in the tank. A gallon of gas cost around the then-unthinkable level of a buck a gallon. Jimmy Carter had given away the Panama Canal, wore cardigan sweaters, lectured us about how we weren’t any good anymore and tried to get us to re-elect him. I had just turned 12 years old and the Russians, the big, bad, ugly Russians who had just invaded Afghanistan, strapped on their skates to take on a group of American college kids in an ice hockey game at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.

This was back when professionals were not allowed to play in the Olympics. We were supposed to still believe in the idea of “pure amateurism” with regards to the Games. Which is why our team was made up of kids that came from places like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, and were only a few years older than me. Oh sure, the Russians/Soviets were “amateurs” but that’s now like saying Elon Musk is “doing OK for himself”. Everyone knew the Red Army team were amateurs in name only. Had this group of skaters been allowed to leave their home country, they all would have been among the best hockey players in the world.

And yet…

45 years ago today, the group of kids with USA on the front of their sweaters went out and sent the Russians home in disgrace, with a 4-3 win in front of an insanely pro-American crowd that seemed to chant USA! USA! USA! from the first puck drop. “Our” victory wasn’t certain at all. The Russians took the lead early on, and the best “we” could do for most of the game was play catchup. We never held the lead until USA captain Mike Eruzione scored with 10 minutes left in the third period to give us that 4-3 lead that, miraculously, held until very end when Al Michaels delivered the line “DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? YES!” that immediately became six of the most-famous words uttered in American history.

Like any good American kid, I “know” I watched the game live on TV, but I’m also 99% certain that the game was on tape delay due to some sort of broadcast issue with ABC. I do know for certain that I was as happy as I had ever been in my life up to that point, and to this day, I have never forgotten February 22 as the anniversary of the Miracle on Ice. I am now a somewhat cranky old guy who will be 60 years old soon, and yet, every time I watch the last minute of that game from 45 years ago, it gets very dusty in the room. It remains the single-greatest event in the history of American sports, and nothing else comes anywhere close.

I also think of what USA captain Mike Eruzione said in a documentary years later about what the Miracle on Ice meant to Americans before the game was a Miracle:

“I remember a telegram we got from a lady in Texas, and all it said was 'Beat those commie bastards.'“

On that day, it may have been a Miracle, but “we” beat those commie bastards. All of us.

And I still hate the Russians…