Brooks Is Back and, Yes, He Still Believes in Miracles

The colors of his warmup suit are the same as they were 18 years ago at Lake Placid--red, white and blue. And his approach to hockey hasn’t changed: Attack intelligently, play well without the puck and maintain a fast tempo.

But Herb Brooks, architect of a gold-medal triumph that united a nation during tense political times and sparked a hockey boom in the United States, isn’t trying to repeat history. Wearing the bleu, blanc et rouge of France, he’s adding a new chapter as coach of the French Olympic hockey team, which began preliminary-round play Saturday with a 4-0 loss to Belarus at Aqua Wing.

Elevating France from also-ran to respectability appeals to the intellectual and orderly aspects of Brooks’ nature. He’s not only coaching the team here, he’s writing a manual for coaches and devising a plan for future player development in France.

“The biggest challenge is to find a system they’re comfortable with,” he said of his players, who are predominantly French-born and--unlike previous Olympics--include only four Quebec natives of French ancestry. “We’re going to play to win, not to not lose. We’re not going to play the trap. Booooring.”

Brooks has been many things, but never has he been boring.

As coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, he set himself up as the bad cop, counterbalanced by General Manager Craig Patrick’s good cop. Playing a motion system that was years ahead of its time and emphasizing good conditioning, he led a tenacious group of basically college kids to an enormous upset of the Soviet Union and prodded them to rally past Finland in the gold-medal game.

No U.S. team has won a medal since then, yet Brooks was never asked to coach the Olympic team again. He tried to sell U.S. hockey officials on a combination national team-developmental program for the quick turnaround between the 1992 and 1994 Games but was rebuffed, which he insisted did not offend him.

“We have a lot of good coaches in the U.S., and I’d like to see the job passed around,” he said. “The U.S. has a good coach in Ron Wilson. He’s a bright young guy.”

Brooks was a bright, young guy of 42 when his team won at Lake Placid. Although he is reluctant to discuss his gold-medal performance, he has been asked about it repeatedly since he arrived here.

“I don’t say that was necessarily the highlight of my life and nothing else matters. That’s not me,” he said. “When I coached [at the University of Minnesota], that was the most important thing. When I coached in the NHL, that was the most important. You can’t rest on one moment and stop there.”

He said he has never watched a tape of the Soviet game in its entirety but remembers it more clearly than the finale, a 4-2 victory over Finland.

“Maybe I’m scared it will change,” he said of the 4-3 victory over the Soviets. “I’ve looked at parts of it once in a while, but not too often. . . .

“What I remember more than the gold-medal game is the last 10 minutes of the Soviet game. I looked at the clock and I remember thinking, ‘There’s 10 minutes left against the greatest team in the world.’ It was almost like slow motion for us. It was an eerie experience. The Soviets were panicking and we were playing controlled and making some plays.

“You must be strong in your mind and think that anything is possible. You have to think of the positives. Our guys were in great physical shape and played well without the puck, which took the ice away from [the Soviets]. And maybe the Soviets didn’t take us too serious.”

Brooks has mixed feelings about the format change that for the first time will allow NHL players to represent their homelands.

“I’m a fan of the NHL and I’m a fan of NHL players, and the games will be very good because of the global talent,” said Brooks, who went on to coach the New York Rangers, Minnesota North Stars and New Jersey Devils but hasn’t been behind an NHL bench since the 1992-93 season. “I’m more of a traditionalist, and I don’t like to see our young players in the U.S. have to be all-stars to play in the Olympics.

“Mr. [Gary] Bettman [the NHL commissioner] has been hired to market the NHL, and he’s looking at having NHL players here as a great showcase. That side, I understand what he’s doing. But in the U.S., in basketball, they start losing a few matches and they feel they have to get NBA all-stars in the Olympics to kick the hell out of opponents. Can the U.S. be so insecure that if it loses a few games, it has to change the format? Give me the 12 best college basketball players and the Olympics would be great.

“I understand what they’re doing, and it’s going to be a tremendous tournament. But the greatest stories are the inspirational ones, the Mark Johnsons and Ken Morrows and players like that.”

Brooks hopes the French players might be able to produce a few inspirational stories at Nagano, beginning with 22-year-old goaltender Christobal Huet. “He’s very gifted,” Brooks said. “I like his ability and his mobility and he has a good glove hand. Most Europeans don’t have good glove hands.”

France is in a difficult group, with Belarus, Germany and Japan. One team from that group and one from the other four-team qualifying group will advance to the medal round--probably to become fodder for the major hockey countries and their NHL stars. Brooks, however, concedes nothing. He has been in a similar position before and knows what could happen.

“The strength of the French team is character and competitiveness,” he said. “The French have competed very hard. We have five or six top guys who can play with anybody, but we don’t have quality depth. . . . Belarus has 10 to 12 guys with American Hockey League, NHL or IHL experience. We don’t have that type of experience. But our hope and dream is that we get to the medal round. Of course, they could kick the hell out of us and put us in a body bag to go home, but so what? These players are good guys and they really want to do well and it’s a learning experience for them.”