The hockey semi-final between Soviet-Russia and USA pitted a group of professional players who had steamrolled competition for decades against a group of scrawny American college students. There wasn't even a suggestion among Americans that the US team stood a chance, especially after being routed by the Soviets 10-3 just weeks before in an exhibition match. But those teenagers held Americas breathe from the moment they stepped on the ice til the buzzer rang. While the Soviets took a lead, it didn't take long for the Americans to equalize. Although the Soviets dominated the ice, with the 3rd period winding down America found themselves down only 3-2. But, with America on his shoulders, Johnson put one past the goalie, tying the game up 3-3. A single minute later, the 26 year old captain, Mike Eruzione, knocked another one past putting America in the lead. The maintained this leader for the final 10 minutes, and as the buzzer rang through the arena, seemingly the entirety of America stood up and screamed with the players celebrating on the ice.
This win represented more than a great upset. After almost 3 decades of the cold war, military tensions had started to decline, but the social superiority contest was still in full swing. For America to humiliate the Soviet's so badly, was an "in your face" moment. Despite how superficial it may be to look back on, the feeling of superiority gave a boost to every Americas moral. Despite all the horrible things happening in America, this victory returned the national pride to many Americans.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-hockey-team-makes-miracle-on-ice
http://www.orda.org/miracle/
This post was very interesting as it shows how important it was for Americans to beat the Soviets, even if it was just a sports game. After doing more research on this topic, I learned that there have been two movies based on this game. In 1981, "Miracle on Ice" was produced and in 2004, "Miracle" was produced. "Miracle" was very popular after its release as the movie grossed $19,377,577 on its opening weekend and that same year won the Best Sports Movie ESPY Award. It is interesting to think how much this event meant to Americans at the time.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_(2004_film)
Interesting post! I love that among two world superpowers, a simple game of Hockey carried heavy symbolic meaning. Similarly in 1969, just one year before the hockey game, America had become the first person to set a person on the moon. This arose out of Kennedy's famous speech in which he states "we do things not because they are easy but because they are hard". Particularly, the U.S. is goes to the moon in order to challenge Soviet Russia. This also arose out of Cold war tensions, in which both super powers were competing to see who could "flex" their industrial powers.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.seeker.com/why-did-we-go-to-the-moon-1765122661.html
It is impressive that the US won the Hockey match against the Soviets and more impressive that they had won the game during a time where US moral was very low. Even though this was just a hockey match, it was able to boost US morale when it was at an all time low. This was very important for the average American to feel prideful of his/her's country again. It is interesting to not that if the US had lost to Finland, then the Soviets would have won the gold medal, and the US moral would not be boosted.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sportingnews.com/us/nhl/news/1980-us-olympic-hockey-team-gold-medal-miracle-soviets-bracket/myvcqg835acg10ek09q7mo915
https://apnews.com/95e6486b8c2cc63272b3a98088bc6912