Mike Eruzione - The Making of a Miracle: The Untold Story of the Captain of the 1980 Gold Medal–Winning U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

I wasnt on the ice when it ended. As the final minute wound down, I was on the bench, standing, not sitting. Who could sit? Mark Pavelich was on my left, Jack OCallahan on my right. They were on their feet, too. The whole team was up, leaning over the boards, shouting, exhorting the six guys on the ice. Herb Brooks, the man who had engineered this absolutely incredible, unimaginable scene, was standing behind me, arms folded, with that same blank expression, even at the moment of the greatest achievement of his life, probably the greatest achievement of any hockey coach, anytime, anywhere, ever.

As the seconds ticked off, all I could think was Get it out. Get it out. Get the puck out. If we could just chip the puck out of our zone, that would be it. The game would be over. Get it out, and not even the greatest hockey team in the world would have enough time to score, to tie the game, before the final horn. Get it out, and weve pulled off the most shocking upset in Olympic history.

To me, and to my nineteen teammates, it was just a game. We didnt see it as a piece of the Cold War, a showdown between the worlds two superpowers, East versus West, communism versus freedom. I understand why people saw it that way and why, even all these years later, millions of people all across the United States remember where they were and who they were with when it happened. But to the twenty of us players, as it was happening, it was one Olympic hockey gameand not even the final one of those in Lake Placid in 1980. It was just a game between two teams. One was made up of amateurs, college players, and a couple teenagers. The other team were professionals, men, veterans. It was a game played in a little village in upstate New York before only about nine thousand people, while the rest of the country sat down for dinner or turned on the evening news or went about their business with no idea, no clue, what was about to happen.

From the bench, I saw the puck skid over the blue line by the far boards. Out. There were still two seconds left on the clock, but nothing was going to hold us back. Pav, OC, and I hopped the boards. Neal, Buzzy, Bah, Janny, Bobby Suter, Wellsy, and the rest did the same. We charged out, running, jumping, galloping across the ice, skipping like kids on Christmas, all headed for Jim Craig, our goaltender. The only person missing was Herb. When the game ended, when the arena erupted, he disappeared.

I hugged one teammate after another. I found one guy, embraced, then turned to look for the next, embraced him, looked for another, and another, and another. At the far end of the ice, in the stands, my mother and father, my cousin, my high school football coach hugged and cried. I glanced up at the scoreboard: 43. It finally hit me: the goal Id scored twenty minutes earlier had been the difference, the winning goal. I hadnt realized that until then. Then another thought took over my mind: all along I had believed. Once we had learned we were going to play them, Id thought it was possible. It was a long shot for sure, but Id thought if we played well, if we did certain things, wed have a chance. Id thought we could win. I had believed from the beginning. I had believed back when I was eighteen, when I had been all set to become a gym teacher. When a chance meeting had changed the course of my life, I had believed I could play big-time college hockey. When it had come to the Olympic tryouts, I hadnt been the fastest skater, I hadnt been the biggest player, and I hadnt been the most talented, but I had believed. I had believed I could play and contribute. Thats just how I was brought up. Thats how it was in my family. You worked. You worked and worked and you waited, and if an opportunity came up, you kept working. And if you believed in yourself and tried as hard as you could, well, at some point something good would happen.

And now something good, something really good and wonderful and incredible and amazing, had happened, and at that moment, thats when I stopped believing. The thought just kept going through my head as I moved from one teammate to the next.

I cant believe it.

I cant believe it.

I cant believe it, I said to myself, over and over.

I cant believe it.

I cant believe we beat the Russians.