30 Years Ago Today
 

Probably one of the biggest events in US Sports history occurred. I was a little over a year old at the time and to this day it is the one sporting event that I wish I could've attended or watched on TV.

No matter how many times I hear the phrase or see the clip on TV I still get goosebumps...

Do You Believe In Miracles?? YES!!!!

And the best part was, it won us the Gold Medal!!!!!11!1!!! :)

I hope you're joking..

USA won the bronze that year!!!

Edit: But we beat the Latvians!!!

I think the Russian players tanked the game.

If when you say Tanked you mean drunk. Then yes they were drunk.

I still love curling to this day

A few years ago I actually found a site where I bought USA/USSR game and USA/Finland match up on DVD.

You mean it didn't, and 95% of the American public doesn't remember that we had to go through Finland to get the gold?

Not nearly on the same scale of course, but it's kind of like how people remember the Sox losing the World Series when the ball went through Buckner's legs (double points because most don't remember the game already being tied at that time).

Back on topic (sort of), do you people who were living then think that the event would have been in any way diminished if we lost the next game to the Fins? Or was just beating the Soviets enough to make it the historic event that it continues to be celebrated as?

You are right most people think that was the gold medal game. In that game with the Fins they were losing going int o the third period. One of my favorite lines from the documentry about the team is when Herb Brooks told the team that if they lose this game they will take it to their fuckin grave. Walk away...turned back and said again "Your fuckin grave."

Dola...but beating a team that whipped the Americans 10 days earlier and handily beat the NHL All Stars 6-3 is still a feat in itself. Gold medal game or not.

I don't think it was the significance of the game itself. It was more about "good" vs "evil" . Democracy vs Communism. The economy was in the shitter, the Iranians were holding American hostages. And as Jthe president put it...It was the first time in American history where people didn't think they were going to be better off 5 years from now than they were now.

The movie "Miracle" does a pretty decent job of giving some perspective on the state of the country at the time.

The gold medal was icing on the cake, but this country was buzzing before the gold medal game happened. Heck, at the time half the country probably didn't realise it was a semi-final game.

Considering that was game 6 and there was still a whole other game to be played because that win tied the series they are very similar.

If anyone is looking for a good book on the subject you should check out The Boys of Winter by Wayne Coffey. The book follows only the USSR game but breaks away at points to give the background on how the players got to be on the team and what they are doing now. It is a really good read.

Just checking. :D

MacroGuru gave me this book for Christmas, and I second the recommendation. 2 thumbs up.

Buckner gets a bad rap. His mistake wasn't anywhere near as bad as Scott Norwood missing that easy chip shot.

Not to mention...Mookie would've beat that out.

Give Buckner a break already. He didn't allow the tieing run to score. It was Gedman who let the passed ball go by to let the tieing run to score.

I have the entire 1986 World Series on betamax. Beat that.

Damn...I was actually just in Barnes & Noble picking up a couple books, and was browsing the hockey stack and remember this book's spine catching my eye. I figured Wayne Coffey was giving the story of how his son Paul grew up playing hockey along with his brother :). If I pulled the book out and saw the cover, I definitely would've picked it up, especially having read this thread earlier today.

I'm probably older than most people here.

I saw the entire series live. I was 16. Beat that.

I must have been alive to tape it as far as I can tell.

Mostly right, except there was no 'Gold Medal Game'. The medals were decided in a round robin and not a playoff format. Finland didn't earn a medal and a loss by the US would have resulted in the Soviets winning gold.

Precisely. Few people know that the Miracle on Ice wasn't the Gold Medal game and even fewer know that the Finland game wasn't technically a Gold Medla game either. All we needed to win the gold was a win or a tie, a loss would have given it to the Russians and we would have won the Bronze, not silver.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...e=UTF8&s=books

The one book I've read that had EVERYTHING on the 1980 US Olympic Team, the preliminary games, everything. I've been looking for it for about a decade now after my last copy bit the dust, but I'm not paying $60 for a copy of it

I think I'll have to fire up Miracle tonight in honor of.

On the other note, I guess the same people who think that game won the gold also believe a replay ref coast Oklahoma a football game and that Steve Bartman cost the Cubs making the World Series.

Crikes, you know I heard some of the clip on Mike and Mike today and had to confess I had NO EARTHLY IDEA of what they were talking about.

I'm glad I could come here today and get it cleared up for me.

/tk

Let's not start this.

Happy 30th Anniversary!

You changed the title? That was confusing the crap out of me.

Yeah I thought the original title was confusing...it's no longer 27 years (like it was in the initial title).

Agreed I will too and then watch the actual USSR-USA game original broadcast which I have on DVD. I have it along with the Finland game on DVD that I bought a couple of years ago for like 20 bucks each well worth it.

Interesting. What's fun is Canada didn't make out of the first round of games.

see also: Denkinger, Don

SI

It was a 40 yd FG. At the time in the NFL that was a 60-70% convert rate.

Converting an easy ground ball in baseball, 99+%.

Yeah, missing the FG was worse.

You're new 'round here, ain'tcha?

Actually I think it was a 47 or 48 yard FG. :)