Posted on 02/21/2015 1:48:08 PM PST by PROCON
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) -- Thirty-five years after the U.S. Olympic hockey team's stunning gold medal at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics, the once-fuzzy-faced heroes are being feted for their signature accomplishment.
Every surviving member of the hockey team is coming back for a "Relive the Miracle" reunion on Saturday night at Herb Brooks Arena, the hockey rink on Main Street they made famous with one of the most memorable upsets in sports history.
Missing will be Brooks, the Hall of Fame coach who was killed in a car accident in 2003, and rugged defenseman Bob Suter, who died at age 57 in September.
(Excerpt) Read more at wxyz.com ...
...and amazingly... Ken Morrow left for the NY Islanders.... where only months later he was part of a team that went on to win 4 consecutive Stanley Cups.... and 5 straight appearences in the cup finals...
He was a terrific defenseman.... and a man of great character....
Was a great moment for the USA. I remember it well.
One of my other favorite moments was a few years earlier, when the Philadelphia Flyers mopped up the ice with the Soviets back in 1976... they were so roughed up, they actually left the ice, crying about how they were getting beaten up so badly.
Did you know that “CCCP” in Russian means...
“LOSING TEAM”
it did right there, and then, for sure...???
It was an AMAZING moment, for sure.
Instead of trading ICBMs, America and the commiebastards traded shots on net.
And they lost.
The Finns Swedes Czechs and Canadians felt the pain too. :-)
I used to love the precision passing and solid clacks as the Russkies and Finns faced off.. the NHL got nothing on those teams, except the grand kids and kids spawned from those teams.
The teams from the CCCP were down right amazing. The skills they possessed were leagues over any other team. I once saw them practice in Finland, it was mind blowing...the speed, the crisp passing, the goalie. Wow!
There was a rebellion brewing in the CCCP team. The coach was very disliked. A few months after the Olympics, the same team from the CCCP beat everyone to win the Canada Cup (beat Canada with Gretzski 8-1). That’s also when the NHL started to build relationships with the Soviets to bring the Russians into the NHL. Rest is history.
Thank you for the wonderful photo! I’ll never forget Jim Craig looking for his father. Seems like it was just yesterday. This post had me in tears recalling all the emotion of that absolutely incredible game as those young men played their hearts out. It was totally unbelievable.
I was propped up on pillows in a comfy bed watching the game when one of the greatest moments in sports occurred before my very eyes!
I remember standing straight up on the bed....then leaping up and down on it like it was a trampoline....over and over again....what a deliriously ecstatic experience.
If I tried that particular physical feat today, I'd kill myself.
Leni
Once the USSR collapsed, Russians were free to leave the country and join the NHL.
They single handedly turned the Red Wing franchise around. In 1996 the Russian 5 gave the Wings their first stanley cup in decades.
Federov, Fetisov, Konstantinov, Kozlov and Larionov........simply awesome players.....Of course having a couple of other guys like Yzerman and Lindstrom and Holmstrom certainly helped too........
NHL rinks are typically 15' narrower than the international rinks used in the olympics and that results in a more physical game.
That was one of the advantages the European olympians always had over the U.S.
There’s always Jesus.
Hey, Jesus saves.
But USA Hockey scores on the rebound!
For shame!
ESPN is right now airing a documentary on the 1980 Russian team.........
True that... but then again, the Finns, Swedes, et al are BORN on the ice, so to speak... those kids are skating by 5 years old.
I remember laughing my ass off when the Russkies went crying off the ice... they were told “Get back out or you don’t get paid...”
Gee... thought “Communist Discipline and doctrine” was all they needed... hehehe..
Was good to see them get humiliated.
the 70’s Flyers were a bad bunch to mess with... then again, MOST NHL teams in the 70’s were a bad bunch to mess with, haha!!
I still remember when Al Arbour led his St Louis Blues charging up into the Spectrum stands after fans in the early 70’s, Cops swinging nightsticks, fans duking it out with them...
Now THAT’s HOCKEY!!!! Haha!
Yeah I remember that. Wasn’t Kozlov the captain of the CCCP team?
That wasn't hockey...........
Have you had a chance to watch ESPN's 30 for 30? It's airing right now...........
It gives great insight into what the Russian players had to truly endure in order to remain on the team........for them it was hockey or nothing, with "nothing" meaning exactly that.
Of course we here in the United States can rejoice from that outcome but there were dramatic repercussions for the actual players of that team in the years that followed.
Am I a sympathizer for that Russian team? Considering what their lives were like playing for their communist national team as compared to the lives of our own skaters, yea, I truly am.
And while the 1980 soviet team included Slava Fetisov, who is currently in the NHL hall of fame, there should be a special award made to him for personally opening the soviet door to Russian hockey players to come to this country........
No, it was Boris Mikhailov
As a side note, after watching this ESPN documentary, the coach of the team, Viktor Tikhonov, actually pulled the greatest goalie in Russian history, Vladislav Tretiak, simply because he missed an easy goal at the end of the first period............
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