SMC 303 Podcast Final

The podcast discusses the famous 1980 Men's Olympic Hockey Team that beat the Soviets and won the gold medal. The team consisted of amateur players who trained for five months to represent the United States. The victory brought a sense of pride and confidence to the country during a time of tension and lack of confidence. The game was considered a miracle and had a significant impact on the Cold War. The team received a congratulatory call from President Carter, highlighting the importance of the victory. Hello and welcome back to Historical Sports, the podcast where I talk about moments in sports that were more than just a game that we still learn about today. Today's topic is going to be about the famous 1980 Men's Olympic Hockey Team. They went and beat the Soviets and won the gold. This team consisted of 20 amateur hockey players who were fresh out of college. They trained for five months to represent the United States of America in the 1980 Winter Olympics hosted by the United States in Lake Placid, New York. Obviously in 1980, Cold War was going on, tensions between the USSR and the United States were at an all-time high. Along with that, America was severely lacking confidence at the time, including to our military. So Herb Brooks was chosen as head coach of the Olympic team. He was thought of as an incredible confidence booster for his team, although sometimes it felt he was overworking them. In reality, he was just setting them up for success and thought they could accomplish anything, similar to what the United States needed to hear during the time in regards to the war. He wanted to motivate his team, and often that would mean making them prove him wrong. The importance of this event was that it gave America a reason to feel good again and be proud of where they are from. Zahra noted that this came at a time of heavy events, with Iran holding students hostage in the invasion of Afghanistan. There was not much hope in the U.S. by defending not only a difficult political party, but their best sports team. By doing that, confidence would rise, and the United States would end up victorious in the war. Now, before I get into the gritty details of the event, let me say that film and sports were prominent parts of Cold War culture. In an excerpt from the Journal of Cold War Studies by Tony Shaw and Denise Youngblood, it states, U.S. and Soviet cinema used sport as an instrument of propaganda during the Cold War. The movie Miracle is direct propaganda, although it wasn't released until years later. It was used to show that the United States is still continuing to be better and stronger than the Soviets. There was very little hope that the United States would beat any team, never mind the Soviet Union, who were considered the best team in the world after beating the NHL All-Stars 6-0 in the Challenge Cup, considered to be a very embarrassing event for the All-Stars. This is a quote that comes from a news article released the day after the Soviets beat the All-Stars. It says, the Soviets were so confident in victory that they even gave their number one goalie a rest and started their backup. This just shows you how confident the Soviets always play. They have such a winning mentality and they know they are good, so they make others fear them because they know that they are good and confident. Herb knew what he was getting himself into when coaching this U.S. team, especially when going up against the Soviets, as he knew how talented they were, which is why he constantly challenged his team to be better. The movie Miracle is my all-time favorite. Watch it at least twice a week. And the part that always sticks out to me is the again scene from the movie. For those unfamiliar, the team plays a really bad flat game, giving no effort in Sweden, and Brooks is less than happy about this, so he makes his team do a goal line where they skate various lengths of the rink as punishment, some might call it a back skate. During it, he says an important quote that I am going to play real quick. So, that quote was just Brooks subconsciously telling his team that the name on the back, their individual person does not matter. When they put on the United States jersey, they are representing the United States and they need to play like they are proud to be in the United States and give that confirmation that they are confident and good enough to win. And that quote just is very important to me. I love hearing it all the time. And also in that scene, he also says, when lose or tie, you're going to play like champions, which I think is another really good reminder that the U.S. will always play as if they have already won and never back down. So getting back to the Soviet U.S. game, I mean, I'm looking at the official game report from that day, and you'd think the Soviets had it in the bag, having 39 shots on net compared to USA's 19. Normally when you see that large of a goal differential, the team with the larger amount always wins because they have so many more chances to shoot on net and get a goal. And on top of that, absolutely embarrassing performance that when the Soviets and USA played at Madison Square Garden prior to the Olympics, you'd think, oh, this is just going to be a round two of that. So the game, the official game report, you'd think shots on goal in favor of the Soviets, but never back down from, there was a never back down effort from the USA team as Brooks wanted them to do. To further explain how defeating the Soviets would provide at least a short period of confidence to the United States, take it from head coach Kerr Brooks himself, as he said, both prior to the game, if we play them 10 times, they may win nine, but not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. This is a world known pre-game speech that I learned it in high school, I know a ton of people know, like, learn about it, and I couldn't find an exact quote from it since there was no cameras in the locker room, so I just decided to read it out. But although he wants his team to know that no matter how many times this is a clean slate, they are winning this game, they are good enough, they are strong enough, and they're going to come out and win. And that just shows you how resilient the team is, leading back to how resilient the United States is, and how positive they are that they are going to win this game and win the Cold War. It's just a really good reminder that the team needed as well as the United States. So during the game, everyone was hopeful for Team USA, while the crowd chanted USA over and over prior to the game, during the game. It was a pretty back and forth game, Soviets scored first, USA got it back, then Soviets won it by two, and then with a minute left, the U.S. scored to take the lead four to three, which is crazy. Everyone was going insane, and broadcast announcer Al Michaels came up with one of the most remembered lines in sports history, which I will play at this time. So Al Michaels says, do you believe in miracles? This just shows you how everyone in the United States was so skeptical of them winning, no one had that much hope for them to win, and on the spot, he couldn't even believe it. He thought it was miraculous. In this quote from a spotlight interview from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympics website, it says, from Al Michaels himself, it says, just stayed in the game and I was able to think of the word miraculous and morphed it into a question and answer only because the puck was about six seconds left, came out to the center ice, and at that point you knew it was over. He speaks for how everyone felt, this moment was truly a miracle, no one thought it would ever happen, and it just shows you how, what could possibly happen if the U.S. won the Cold War. So, keeping on Al Michaels for a minute, as well as blowing over in that do you believe in miracles quote, he also made this assumption at the beginning of the game that I will play real quick. It's going to be a great night. I'm sure there are a lot of people in this building who do not know the difference between a blue line and a closed line. It's irrelevant. It doesn't matter. So he says, I bet there's a lot of people in this stands that do not know the difference between a blue line and a closed line, but that does not matter, because saying that line is so important, because it just shows you people were there to support their country and support the United States hockey team, even if they didn't understand the sport. It didn't matter to them. They were there to support their country and hope for the best and go cheer them home and beat the Soviet Union. And even the players were a little shocked by the final score. A quote from Captain Michael Rizzioni in the Washington Post article, it was released the same night as the game, says, right now, I'm a little confused. Everything happened so fast. I don't think you can put into words what this means. He was in so much shock, he couldn't even think about what to say. He thought this was such a historical event, he couldn't believe it happened. And this just shows you the players didn't even have full confidence and faith in themselves to win, but Herb Brooks knew they could win. And this just goes back again to saying how if America was as strong and confident as they thought they could be and more, they could go and win the Cold War against a super country like Russia. So following the final buzzer and Michael's enthusiasm on air, the team heads into the locker room to celebrate. The victory brought a congratulatory phone call to the dressing room from President Carter, says a February 23rd article from the New York Times. The president was even so astonished and proud of this accomplishment of beating the Soviet Union that he himself needed to congratulate the team. That just, if that doesn't tell you how big of an event this is, that would be crazy because this isn't even a gold medal game. This is a semifinal game that doesn't even, yeah, they go on to the gold medal games later on, but right now, this is just a let's stay in the game. I know for a fact no other sports team got this call, but since they beat the Soviets, it was so important to them to get a call. And then later in that same article, it says that Herb Brooks wrote on a little white piece of paper, in quotes, born to be a player and showed the media and he's quoted to have said, I really said this to the guys, I'm not lying to you. Coach Brooks wanted his team to know he believed in them and knew they could do what they were born to be here. He knows that they were born to be hockey players, so they have to play like they know they should be here, just like how the military should defend, like they know how they are meant to be there. So the 1980 Miracle on Ice event changed the way Olympics were broadcasted, actually. This is insane to me because there was insane numbers of the Soviet US game, just a random game in the middle of the Olympics. It brought, quote, 34.2 million average viewers, while the other Olympic sports broadcast had an average rating of 23.6 million, according to an article by Bruce Berglund and the Washington Post. Due to that, ABC gained rights to pregame, during game and postgame content of the Olympics. And even despite the actual game being on a tape delay because the Soviet Union were on a different time zone, views were up tremendously. This game was so important to media outlets that it changed the way sports were broadcasted because of how big of a game it was. And I just think that is crazy because the amount of views that were brought in were meant to support the USA, and that obviously showed by the amount of views. So with all this information I've thrown at you, I just want you guys to remember the important details. The 1980 Men's Olympic Miracle on Ice over the Soviet Union was more than just a hockey game. It was a chance to give America some of their confidence back and show the country that they are stronger than all their discouraging inner thoughts. I think this event contains a lot of subliminal messages where you can take hockey out of it and put in the military and the Cold War. Whether it's the Olympics or the Cold War, the USA gives its hardest effort and never backs down or thinks of giving up because they don't think they have a chance. I mean, Zirin said it best, it gave the country a reason to feel good again, which is exactly what happened here. Everyone went crazy when the United States beat the Soviet Union, again, not even winning a medal-defining game, just a regular Olympic game. So that was bigger than the gold medal game, which I think speaks a lot to how important this was politically to show that the US is better than the Soviets and that, again, gave the confidence back to the United States where they were very much lacking. The citizens of the United States rejoiced and felt united for the first time in a while while cheering on their country. They felt so good about this. So thank you for listening to this podcast and come back next week for another exciting sports story. Bye.