For U.S. Hockey Team, It Was a Miracle Run

A bunch of college kids, mostly, in their teens and early 20s, were chasing a most improbable dream--an ice hockey gold medal that had been won by the Soviet Union in the previous four Winter Olympics.

And the kids made it happen, on this date 19 years ago, with a rousing 4-2 win over Finland in the gold-medal game at Lake Placid, N.Y.

Two days earlier, the Americans had achieved the impossible, a 4-3 victory over the USSR. Broadcaster Al Michaels engraved it in our memories with his call at the final horn:

“Do you believe in miracles?”

The USSR had won the Olympic hockey tournament at the previous four Olympics, and was a prohibitive favorite in 1980, too, with a team of international veterans.

Yet here was a bunch of American kids, coming down the home stretch with the lead against Finland, before a near-riotous 10,000 at the Olympic Fieldhouse. The crowd had just gone wild as the U.S. team, trailing 2-1, scored three goals in a nine-minute stretch late in the game.

Later, talking about the improbable victories over the USSR and the Finns, forward John Harrington repeated to reporters what the team’s coach, Herb Brooks, had told them to do before the two games:

“We reloaded, we went up to the tiger, spit in his eye . . . and shot him.”

Also on this date: In 1960, the Minneapolis Lakers asked the NBA for permission to move to Los Angeles, owner Bob Short saying his team had met with dismal economic success in Minneapolis. . . . In 1957, the New York Giants, citing transportation and parking problems at the Polo Grounds, conceded they were considering moving the team to San Francisco.

In 1958, UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, looking for more speed on the floor, announced he would start Rafer Johnson at guard, replacing sophomore Denny Crum. Two years later, Johnson won the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon. . . . In 1951, 2-1 shot Rough’n Tumble was seventh in the back stretch but ran down the front-runners and won the Santa Anita Derby by two lengths.