The Real Gold Medal Game
Today is the 25th anniversary of the game that made the Miracle on Ice complete, the USA's 4-2 victory over Finland that clinched the 1980 Ice Hockey Gold Medal for Herb Brooks' team. When people speak of the Miracle, they usually talk about the USA's stunning 4-3 victory over the Soviets. Few seem to even realize how important the Finland game was. Even the movie Miracle treated it as an afterthought. This attitude is stunning to me, for the simple reason that had the Americans lost to the Finns, they would not have won the gold. In fact, had Finland beaten the US by two or more goals, and had the Soviets and Swedes played to a tie in their game, the Americans would not have won any medal.
ESPN Classic is showing the USA-Finland game, from 8:00-10:00 PM tonight. Once again, I'll be firing up the VCR.
posted by Dave at 1:15 AM
1 Comments:
Just think about the huge release of emotions from the game against the USSR. For that team to pick themselves back up after that and once again win a game they entered as the underdog is a testament, I think, to Herb Brooks. And I don't just say that because I'm from Minnesota.
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