A Reporter Remembers the Miracle on Ice 40 Years Later.
'The Times wasn’t going to send anyone to cover hockey at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid. But one sportswriter had a feeling.
I had my heart set on going to Lake Placid, N.Y. It would be my first Olympics, even though I was midway through my 41-year career as a sportswriter with The Times.
It was February 1980, and I had been writing about the young U.S. hockey team. The coach, a get-inside-your-head Machiavellian named Herb Brooks, told me he was creating an “American style” of hockey, which he believed could end the dynasty of the Soviet Union, which had won the last four Olympics. The Soviets were the best hockey team in the world.
The Americans were young, in fact the youngest U.S. Olympic squad ever, with an average age of 22. The Soviets were full-time, paid players, putatively soldiers. In an exhibition game just a few weeks before the Olympics, they routed the Americans, 10-3, at Madison Square Garden in New York. The dynasty seemed safe that night.
But I had a feeling. Brooks had abandoned the traditional North American hockey style of “playing the body,” and of staying put in your lane. Instead, his skaters, spectacularly swift, crisscrossed over the ice. The young Americans were not afraid to leave their traditional positions. They hit just enough to show who they were. Brooks believed that combination — more open play, with enough body checking — was the only way to meet the Olympic challenges.
Then I got a phone call from the Sports department. There was a money crunch, and we were cutting back. I wasn’t going to Lake Placid.
I arranged to see A.M. (Abe) Rosenthal, the fearsome executive editor of The Times. I told him I believed the young Americans were capable of making noise, that they could surprise the sports world. I convinced him. Without hesitating, Rosenthal told me I was going. . .
The Americans went down by a goal twice. I was impressed by the way they kept their poise. The game was tight, and I realized this might be the biggest story I would write. I remember thinking over and over: “What is my lead going to be? Am I up to this?”
They won, 4-3, as the broadcaster Al Michaels exclaimed in the final seconds, “Do you believe in miracles? … Yes!” For the first time, I heard the chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”'>>>
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