When T.J.
Oshie rammed home yet another shootout goal to beat the Russians in the Sochi
Olympics, U.S. celebrated.
Alas, it
was just a great game between two teams that failed to win medals.
Nonetheless,
just about everyone at NBC was comparing it to the Miracle On Ice win in Lake
Placid in 1980.
With
apologies to Al Michaels and Mike Eruzione, if you ask me it, 1980 was really Miracle
No. 2, the first one occurred in 1960 when Squaw Valley in California hosted
the Winter Games two decades before Al Michaels asked his famous question: “Do
you believe in miracles?” It was a call for ages.
Granted
what was going on in the world in 1980 and the fact that the Russians, were,
well the Russians, who had trounced the Americans 10-1 in an exhibition match,
certainly conjures up images of a miracle win for that 1980 team.
And with
today’s crop of sportscasters and radio talk show guys, who see the history of
sports as what they viewed during their lifetimes, the 1960 Olympics don’t even
register with them.
What happened
in 1980 really pales in comparison to what the 1960 squad did.
The 1980
team was made up of amateurs. Right! They played (and that’s all they did) a
64-game exhibition season all over the globe. They were together for months,
working toward the games. Maybe they weren’t pros in the true sense of the
word, but they were light years ahead of the “real” amateurs cobbled together
for the Squaw Valley Games.
In 1960,
the NHL was dominated by Canadian players. There were no American-born stars.
The U.S. team was tossed together for the Squaw Valley games consisted of
mostly former college stars —obviously not good enough to play in the NHL.
I really
don’t know if they played many exhibition games before coming up against the
powerful Canadians, who were dominating amateur hockey at that time, the Czechs
who were a machine and the upstart Russians who had already claimed a world
title right after joining international play a few years earlier.
With Jack
McCartan in the goal and two pair of brothers, Bob and Billy Cleary and Roger
and Billy Christian, the U.S. squad stunned the world, going 7-0 in the
tourney, knocking off the Canadians, Russians and finally the Czechs in the
medal round to win the gold.
That was
really a miracle.
As long as
we’re at it, while I’m a big Mike Eruzione fan, the biggest goal scored in 1980
probably came off the stick of Steve Baker with just 26 seconds to go in the
very first game against Sweden. Baker’s late goal earned the U.S. a 4-4 tie.
Methinks that tie rather than a loss is what got the Americans into the medal
round. No Baker goal, no chance to play the Russians, let alone beat them.
It should
be noted that T.J. Oshie, the St. Louis Blues forward, who withstood all the
pressure and made four of six shots in the shootout against Russia Saturday
(Feb. 15), is just the latest U.S. Olympic hockey hero to come out of tiny Warroad, Minn. The
small community is virtually on the border with Canada and has a population of
less than 2,000.
The U.S. has won gold in men’s hockey twice and both teams
had Warroad alums on the roster. It started with the Christian brothers, who
were on the 1960 team, and Bill’s son, Dave, who was on the 1980 squad.
A number of players on the 1980 squad went on to play in the
NHL — a few had productive careers.
It looks as though only McCartan got a shot in the NHL — and
that was brief. He played in four games for the New York Rangers after the
Olympics, and then got a shot share goaltending duties with Gump Worsley for the
1960-61 season. McCartan did not fare well. After a few games, he was sent to
the minors. He played for a number of teams over a 15-season span. He did play
in 42 games over three years in the early 1970s for the Minnesota Fighting
Saints in the World Hockey Association.
