Open Mic: "Miracle on Ice" Greatest Sports Accomplishment Ever

In 1980, the USA was reeling. Coming out of a troubled decade in the 70s where we saw a messy Vietnam War, rising unemployment, gas shortages, the Watergate crisis, inflation and so on: the United States was in need of something positive to re-energize the nation and inspire the nationalistic spirit that was once so great.

The Soviet Union was invading Afghanistan and had everyone in fear. Not to mention their hockey team was the most dominant machine in the world.

The Soviet's had won four consecutive gold medals in the Olympics and were full of grown men who had played together for years and were the most talented players in the world. Nobody could beat them, especially not a young and inexperienced USA team.

But all of that changed on one fateful night in 1980 in Lake Placid and when classic David and Goliath match up awaited.

The USA team decided to play the Soviet Union a week before the Olympics started to get a taste of what to expect against the best in the world. The Soviets hammered the Americans 10-3 and everyone assumed that the Soviet team was on their way to another gold medal.

But as the USA team began to win games in the Olympics, they gained confidence and hope that they just might be able to make a run.

Still, even when the USA team was looking like they were going to win their pool and were playing well, they were hoping to avoid the Soviet's in the first medal round but that wasn't to be. Team USA was about to get their rematch, whether they thought they were ready or not.

I remember watching an interview with Mel Brooks where he said his players were actually applauding the Soviet team when they were being introduced. Brooks tried his best to break down the Soviet team and make them sound like they weren't that good. Try and convey to his team that they were just regular hockey players and they were beatable.

Once the game started, the Soviet's came out on the attack and the Americans were doing everything they could to get into the game.

As the game went on, the longer the Americans hung in there, they gained confidence that they could actually win this game.

When Mike Eruzione sent in the decisive goal to make it 4-3 USA with only a few minutes left in the game, you knew that it was not only a possibility, but a very real possibility.

Nobody can ever forget Al Michael's famous call, "Eleven seconds, you've got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk...five seconds left in the game...Do you believe in miracles? YES!!! Unbelievable!!!"

The Americans had done it. They had beaten the most feared team in the world and they had done it with a bunch of college kids. They had beaten the four time defending gold medalists and a team that had just demolished them 10-3 a few weeks earlier.

They had pulled off the greatest upset in sports history.

After that game, America seemed to have a new found sense of patriotism and a performance like that had never needed more than at that time.

Dave Ogrean, former USA hockey executive, said, "It's the most transcending moment in the history of our sport in this country."

He went on to say, "For people who were born between 1945 and 1955, they know where they were when John Kennedy was shot, when man walked on the moon, and when the USA beat the Soviet Union in Lake Placid."

That's why the 1980 USA hockey team will always hold the spot in my mind as the greatest sports accomplishment ever and surely an event has never mattered more to a country than that one mattered to the United States at that moment.