Today is the fortieth anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” when the underdog U.S. men’s hockey team, which no one every thought had a chance, beat the world’s greatest hockey superpower, the Soviet Union, in the semifinal round of the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Two days later (Feb. 24, 1980), the U.S. men’s hockey team beat Finland to win the Olympic Gold medal.
The “Miracle on Ice” was a welcome and surprise victory that helped lift the spirits of the country at a time when America was down, and, many believed, in a state of irreversible decline.
And, in retrospect, it was clearly providential and a harbinger of the future. The win presaged the oft-stated belief by then-Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan that America’s best days lie ahead.
In fact, with Reagan’s election as president, America came roaring back and experienced one of the greatest economic booms in its history, while defeating the Soviet Union in the Cold War.
Talk of national decline was eclipsed with talk of American greatness, as the country enjoyed a quarter-century of triumph and achievement arguably unlike anything it has ever experienced and likely every will experience again.
All of this may seem obvious with the benefit of historical hindsight; but on Feb. 22, 1980, the notion that America had a future worthy of its past seemed quaint and fanciful.
American Decline. The U.S. economy was mired in a deep recession; the auto industry was on the ropes, with Chrysler and American Motors on the verge of bankruptcy; and OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in the Middle East, had America over a barrel—literally and figuratively.
The Soviet Union, meanwhile, was on the march—in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Nicaragua turned communist in 1979 and El Salvador seemed destined to follow. Communist Cuban guerrillas were on the offensive in Angola, and the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.
In 1956, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev boasted, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!” In February 1980, it looked, sadly, like he might be right.
In the preceding decade, the United States had suffered a series of disasters, including: the Vietnam War, Watergate, the resignation of Richard Nixon as president, oil and energy shocks, gas rationing and long lines at the pump, recessions and high inflation, Three Mile Island…
By November 1979, Islamist revolutionaries in Iran had toppled the government there and taken 52 Americans hostage. A rescue attempt in April 1980 was a complete fiasco. America looked like a pitiful, helpless giant, as even then-President Jimmy Carter seemed to acknowledge.
“The erosion of our confidence in the future,” Carter said in his important but much-derided ‘malaise speech,’ “is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”
The malaise speech was much-derided not because it was wholly wrong in its diagnosis, but rather because Carter appeared to have no clue about how to right the ship of state and reverse America’ precipitous decline.
David versus Goliath. This was the political context in February 1980 when the U.S. men’s hockey team began its miraculous ascent.
The team was comprised of amateurs from the American heartland. Most were from Minnesota and other northern states. Some had played college hockey; but no one would ever put them on a par with their vaunted counterparts from the Soviet Union.
As Tom D’Angelo explains in the Palm Beach Post:
The Soviets had won six of the previous seven gold medals in men’s hockey and were the overwhelming favorites. The team was made up of professionals who had been crushing opponents after losing to the U.S. in the 1960 Games, losing just one game in the previous 20 years.
This band of mismatched American collegians led by feisty coach Herb Brooks stood no chance against the Red Army.
“By the time of the big game on Friday, Feb. 22,” notes the Washington Examiner’s Quin Hillyer,
the American people had adopted their gritty team in a way that I’ve never seen before or since. It is not mere ex post facto gloss to say the contest was seen as being about much more than just hockey, more even than Olympic gold.
For the first time since World War I, Americans saw themselves—not just the team, but the nation—as underdogs. The young hockey squad carried the country’s hopes that underdogs still could win, that freedom could defeat regimentation, and that right could triumph. The battle seemed civilizational.
Win, of course, the Americans did. Most readers know the game story—the saves by goalie Jim Craig, the go-ahead goal by captain Mike Eruzione, and announcer Al Michaels’s immortal question, as the last seconds ran off the clock: “Do you believe in miracles?”
“Yes!” he answered… And finally, yes, we did.
This was very important, because by most lights, it would take a miracle to outstrip the Soviets in the far more consequential, geopolitical, nuclear-haunted battle of ideals and will.
The problem was that only one major presidential candidate in 1980 seemed eager to wage that battle.
His name: Ronald Wilson Reagan. The rest, as they say, is history. Reagan would go on to win the presidency, and then to inspire and lead an American economic renaissance. And, in the end, thanks to his concerted efforts, it was the United States that buried the Soviet Union.
But for most ordinary Americans, the first real glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, all was not lost, and that America could once again be great, came in the winter of our discontent in a small town (Lake Placid) in upstate New York.
There a group of unheralded but determined young Americans came together as a team to give it their all and achieve the impossible. And if they could do it, so could we. And we did.
Feature photo credit: Focus on Sports/Getty via InsideHook.