St. Louis Blues fans still talk about the “Monday Night Miracle” of 1986, when the Blues came back from a three-goal deficit midway through the third period to beat Calgary in overtime.
Of course, that was only Game 6 of a seven-game series. And in fact, it was only the Stanley Cup seminfinals. The Flames won Game 7, then lost the finals to Montreal. But the Monday Night Miracle may still be the greatest moment in Blues history (at least until they actually win a Cup.)
I have no wish to disparage Al Michaels. But he seems to have forgotten that on January 28, 1980 the Canadian government transported several Americans who had escaped the Iranian hostage crisis, other Americans were still held hostage until January of the next year.
The above was a big deal to Americans. When Canada was playing hockey, American stuffed the arena and chanted 'CAN-A-DA! CAN-A-DA!"
The Miracle on Ice was an opportunity for America (then facing the end of the Cold War, but we didn’t know it) and still with hostages in the embassy in Iran, to have some chest beating excitement.
I don’t think it’s something people remembers where they were, except hockey fans.
I saw it happen during the original broadcast early that Sunday morning. I was cooking breakfast. I’m glad they won & I was happy for the players but the silly political over-reaction was ridiculous.
When the players hugged, you could tell it wasn’t “oh, look at us! Putting a thumb in the eye of the Russians!”.
It was more, “I’ve spent every day of my life since I was 5 getting up at 4:30 AM to practice. And we won!”
I know where I was. But where I was was hangin’ out with the hospital with my mom - I was two days old.
Where were you at the time? The game was broadcast live in Canada, but not in the U.S. And it was played at 5 pm Eastern Time (after the Soviets refused to move it to 8 pm), but aired in the U.S. later that evening.
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They didn’t actually transport the Americans, that was a CIA operation, but they did hide the Americans in the Canadian Embassy for six months or so. It was the cover story, though, so that’s what all Americans thought had happened.
Just a nitpick.
Read the first line of the OP again. He didn’t say the events were in any way comparable, he said that people remember where they were when they heard the result. This is my experience as well, for anyone who was over 16 years old at the time. It was much, much bigger than just a hockey game, especially if you were in Madison, where two of the best players grew up and played for Wisconsin (including Mark Johnson, who was a much better player and had a much bigger role in the victory than Mike Eruzione.)
I knew it was pretty easy to avoid; I’m wondering though if someone really curious could have found out without going through a lot of trouble.
Which to me gives the lie to the notion that this would be a more “pure” way of determining medals. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. play just once, the U.S. wins, and the U.S.S.R. gets gold and the U.S. silver? That makes **zero **sense to me.
I seem to be misremembering that I heard it on NPR (there’s that funny thing about memory again, just from earlier today) as I can’t find it on their website; but I found something on CNBC that looks like what I remember him saying:
I still think it’s looney to think this was true for nearly all Americans, even non-jingoists in areas where hockey wasn’t popular.
Michaels was also asked right after that about the tape delay thing:
I was 10 years old at the time. I remember it quite well, because my mom and I were at Denver’s Stapleton Airport to pick up my dad from a flight, and the airport made an announcement over the PA speaker that Team USA had beaten the Russian team. I didn’t think it was a big deal when the announcement was made (I knew next to nothing about hockey at any level), but I changed my mind when I saw the cheers and applause of everyone around me – even the old ladies who were seated in the airport.
I also remember where I was on the afternoon of Oct. 17, 1989 (my college dorm room, getting ready to watch a World Series game) – a memory also associated with Al Michaels.
Perhaps not for you, or even most people of your generation, but for those of us who remember the 1980 games I don’t think anything will ever come close, sports-wise. The Cold War was still raging at that point, and we sent a bunch of college kids up against the Red Army Hockey Team; it was the closest thing to a literal David vs. Goliath contest since David slew Goliath.
All that said, I don’t think its fair to make a comparison between events like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, and a hockey game. It was a big moment in the world of sports, but it wasn’t ‘world changing’.
And a ‘big’ of an event as it was, the specifics of it didn’t really make an impression on me. I know I watched the game, but I can’t really remember any of the details beyond Al Michaels’ now-famous line…though I do recall thinking “Well, we better beat Finland or else this effort is all gonna be for naught”. On the other hand, I have a vivid memory of Dwight Clark making ‘the Catch’; I can still quote myself as I watched Kirk Gibson step to the plate during Game 1 of the 1988 World Series (“the only way he can make it to first base is if he hits it out”); and I can clearly recall my annoyance that the broadcast cut out just minutes before Game 3 of the 1989 Series.
But I already noted in my OP that I *do *remember the '80 Games–remembered both the Heiden’s names even though I hadn’t thought about them in years. But I didn’t even know the U.S. beat the Soviets in hockey in those Games until years later, and had trouble understanding why it was a big deal since after all the U.S. tends to be good in a lot of sports.
He did say they were comparable – in the way people remember huge momentous events during their lives. He’s wrong, and it was a ridiculous comparison. I remember it, mostly because of the endless replays of Al screaming whatever he was screaming as time ran out. The strongest reaction I had was, “Oh, that’s nice.”
I might agree that America has a disproportionately large percentage of sports fanatics, and perhaps to them, it was really that memorable.
If you’d asked me to list some defining Olympic Moments… that would probably have been one of the top, but not #1 for most people. Surely top 10.
Memorable hockey games? Sure. It’d have a good shot at #1 on the list for many people.
Up there with Pearl Harbor and 9/11 as life events? No.
No point in going on if you’re just going to redefine what he actually said into something he never said because you don’t like sports.
I remember where I was, in the TV viewing room at my dorm. With a cooler at my side.
And it was being broadcast on tape delay and the local news teaser came on with about 10 minutes to go and announced that the US Team beat the USSR.
There was about 15 of us watching and we were all so pissed! (pissed at the announcer, not that we won).
Not so much ------- but the 1988 Olympic basketball results! Now there was a victory! Not so much the USSR over the USA or Communism over Capitalism. But it was a benchmark that even slow uncoordinated white guys could prevail if they played like a team beginning to end.
Here is what the OP said:
(as quoted from the OP)
Here is what I said:
??
How exactly is “similar kind of event” not synonymous with “comparable”?
I don’t remember it from when it happened (I would have been four), but there was the whole Cold War thing, and the Rocky vs Ivan Drago type of storyline, these scrappy college kids playing essentially a professional Soviet time that has only failed to win gold medals twice in their existence (56-88) :in 1960 and 1980. That said, the U.S. team usually did take the silver, or the gold in those two cases. Despite not remembering that specific game, I do remember the Olympics being wrapped up in a lot of Cold War fervor, at least in my circles. Beating the Soviets at that tense time in history at a game they historically dominated, I completely understand the rush it would have been at the time. Hell, I still get chills watching reruns of that game though I’m not particularly patriotic or jingoistic.
It was playing on NBC(?) or one of the other antenna TV stations that broadcast out of Manhattan. It was Sunday morning… sometime between 7 and 10AM, but well before noon.
I don’t know what the records show… I just remember turning on the TV and there it was. I’m guessing live? Who rebroadcasts early on a Sunday morning?
I didn’t watch the game. Not a big hockey fan. I do remember some excitement the next day for “We beat Russia!” sort of thing.
Not in the era dominated by the Soviet Union. The US placed 5th, 6th, 2nd, and 6th in the four Olympics between 1960 and 1980, and did not medal again afterward until 2002.