AP: Russians Still Sucking on ‘Miracle on Ice’
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — They are gathering again at a Winter Olympics, now aging cold warriors.
Thirty years ago, they played a game that has been called the greatest upset in Olympic history, a David-vs.-Goliath tale, a political metaphor, a miracle.
That’s how many Americans remember the hockey game played at the Lake Placid Olympics on Feb. 22, 1980, when a group of mostly college kids defeated the mighty team from the Soviet Union, which had dominated the sport for most of the previous two decades.
But what went through the minds of those red-clad players, who watched in stunned disbelief as the Americans celebrated the “Miracle on Ice” at the other end of the rink?
The hawkish features of goalie Vladislav Tretiak turned soft and he smiled slightly as he was reminded of the painful anniversary. But he brushed the memory aside as easily as one of the many thousands of shots he turned away in his Hall of Fame career.
via FOXNews.com – Russians play down ‘Miracle on Ice’ 30 years later.
My old friend Simon in Moscow sent me this and wrote:
AP: “Russians play down ‘Miracle on Ice’ 30 years later.” What kind of headline and story is that? How about a piece titled “Tatar-Mongols play down the Kulikovo battle 629 years later”?
I’m with him on this. Seriously, can we get over ourselves about the Miracle on Ice? It was great and all, but you hear about it every five minutes in this country. I lived in Russia for 10 years and didn’t even once hear about a bunch of Soviets with hideous mustaches whipping the asses of David Robinson, Danny Manning and Mitch Richmond in basketball in Seoul in ‘88. I heard a lot about the 1972 thing, but that was only in the context of Russians being so amused by how much we whined about getting jobbed by the refs.
I mean really, whatever happened to acting like you’ve been there before? I’m trying to imagine what the citizen of someplace like Liechtenstein or Reunion Island thinks when he sees Americans keeping a 30-year boner over the image of themselves as longshot underdogs who beat the odds.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
“… keeping a 30-year boner over the image of themselves as longshot underdogs who beat the odds”.
That’s a great line!
Yeah, enough already- we sound like a bunch of whiny Bahston RedSawks fans.
In US soccer, we still refer to our one brief and shining moment when a bunch of rag tag college kids beat England in the 1950 World Cup…. ritualized myth building at work…
Especially during the Olympics, boy does it get old to see massive G-8 countries refer to their teams, resources or prospects as ‘underdog’ or ‘come out of nowhere’ to win all these glorious medals when dude in some remote cluster-fucked place cannot find food… Oh yeah maybe there is a connection
Anywho, thanks for bringing up Bitch Richmond and his Kansas State J….
Yeah, Matt, Americans are rife with ego. Perhaps, I should say drunk on it. It’s THE reason we sent young men and women to die in Iraq while we gave billions of dollars to military contractors.
Though I’ve long chagrined the nationalism that has infested the Olympics, better there with hockey sticks and balls than bullets and bombs amidst innocent onlookers.
-RLee
http://therleepost.blogspot.com
Don’t forget, we also won World War II single-handed.
Hi Matt,
Sorry to hear you were sick but glad to be asked for thoughts. So would you please speak to the horror of the anti-education/knowledge/literate/honesty mania that has subsumed the Republican Party?
Do you see any Bill Buckleys on the horizon to slap these people down?
Thanks for all your work – you’re the best torpedos be damned truth-teller out there.
The boner remains because — whatever the US has become — that win was the rare, legitimate David vs. Goliath story (unlike the 1988 Olympic hoops upset which was more like David vs. Goliath’s drunken little sister.)
This is not to excuse the media’s, particularly ESPN’s, continuing reliance on an old story to attract attention, but that’s a different issue.
Btw, my perception is that NC State’s nearly as ancient upset over Phi Slamma Jamma still gets just as much play overall as the Miracle on Ice.
I’m okay with “Do you belive in miracles”? I’ve only heard it about five hundred times. That’s half as many as I heard my (much taller) buddy say, “Belov rebounds, puts it up, it’s good!” the fall after “the 1972 thing.”
But….but….isn’t this one of the wonderful things that happened in good old days that Glen Beck keeps telling me about? You progressives want to ruin all of our good memories.
I’m with you on this. It was great, let’s move on.
EEEEEEEEEE-ROOOOOOOOOOOO-ZEEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOON-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! I just pitched a tent!
You jaded assholes, this game and Reagan’s “Star Wars” program are what won the Cold War. Not to mention providing the U.S. players with careers in motivational speaking and memorabilia signing:
indyagenda.com
It makes sense to act like you’ve been there before; but we haven’t really.
Oooh, Canada beat Germany. So the Canucks can all calm down.
ok, yes it is strange to hear Americans constantly referring to what is now a historical event. we have the shortest memory of any nation & most people can’t tell you when the civil war took place. so yeah maybe we should move on but what made me laugh when I read this is the implication that somehow the Russians would have. No way, as an eastern european, I know how slavic peoples hang on to their history! 30 years is nothing & this event was more than a hockey game.
Go Canucks – would love to see a rematch with USA
For being the richest, most powerful country in the world, we do seem to have a chip on our shoulder. But I think you are commenting more on national character than sports memories. You would know much better than I, but my impression of Russians is that they would tend to understate rather than to bloviate. They’ve got more on their minds than 30 year old achievements.
america still riding high on the waves of past victories? surely you’re joking…..
Miracle on ice was what… 30 years ago? It’s akin to celebrating the invention of Pong.
All I can say is thank God for intelligent iconoclasts who are savvy enough to not only find a public forum to air their opinions and garner a significant audience, but also possess the common dog-fuck to do so in a balanced manner without resorting to shrill, knee-jerk pandering. While this is a post in response to an article on hockey, I find this is true of all your articles.
Common sense. So rare in the media. IIIIIIIIIIII like IT!
So keep on keepin on. Thank you.
For killing all those gooks, sand niggers and spics in the last 50 years, I hope you loose every fucking game.
THEY SUCK, YOU NOT A SPOT, AS MY FELLOW COMMENTER SAID WHO IM JUST FOLLOWING, LETS MOVE ON. losers SUCK!
http://www.twitter.com/writtenviews
Fuck the Soviets.
I could care less about what they think about the miracle on ice.
Matt,
I am truly worried about your blog as it is starting to become like the Republican Party. Leader (Matt Taibbi) makes pronouncement and followers (us) agree with total abandon without thinking for ourselves. Since I am done being a mindless drone and quite capable of independent critical analysis, here goes:
I am surprised you missed the point of why the 1980 Miracle on Ice victory still resonates with Americans today and it has nothing to do with sports or hockey. Indeed, in many ways, it stands for the same thing that you do: The little guy standing up for himself and believing he can make a better life for himself or his family.
This victory is a reinforcement of the American belief system, wherein a small guy (ordinary Americans) can take on the corporate elites (Russia) and prevail. It goes to the heart of what America used to stand for: Individual and collective achievement in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. The American Revolution, Manifest Destiny, WW1 & WW2, the race to the moon. America is a nation built on dreams and defying odds.
So, of course, people still talk about it and of course these puffy 50 year old former hockey players are treated like gods because people want to be reminded that this stuff can happen again. That their core beliefs are still true and that there is hope. Especially now when it seems like we no longer control our own destiny and the odds are stacked high against us.
Personally, every time I see the former Captain Mike Eruzione, smiling and patting his beer belly, I am reminded that if that fat fuck can beat the Russian hockey machine so can I.
And, of course, the Russians don’t get it; they don’t have our belief systems.
T’other night me and the wife just say that old X-Files episode where the Cigarette Guy admitted he made the MOI happen just to stick it to the Rooskies.
I’m sure lots of people are pissed that you took another few precious moments to rant on sports, but fuck em. The level of gayness in NBC’s coverage is just unreal. I honestly thought Douchebag QB — what’s his face, Collinsworth? — was going to start accidentally fondling and gently licking Dizzy Blonde Ski Whore’s tits right in front of my bowl of fucking Doritos. What a touch-hole.
Yea, at the pool the other day a Russki in the next lane cut into my laps expounding on why their figure skater’s quad was worth more than ours triple jumps. Hard to get over…
It is why like you never meet a German who fought on the Western Front…always the East. Nor do you ever meet any KGB agents except those who write books…guess talk about using a grinder to amputate toes gets banal after while.
For our part, our mass media is a guaranteed rear view mirror into the past
Oh yea, wait, I did know a SS Tank Commander, an Alsatian who was impressed into the German Army and surrended to the Americans and became a baker while a captured soldier…he said he really liked the death’s head on his collar. Guess it was all costumes to him as he was costume manager for the Opera du Rhin when I knew him. Must be that Wagner armour…
Then then was the Old SS Colonel when I was ski bumming in Austria. At lest that is what people whispered about him. He used to burn all the old wood skis after taking off the metal edges and would say to me…Doch,ich werde dich auch im Offen werfen….curiosities and hangups are all there for the picking.
What are you talking about? I’ve met a number of Germans who served in the West. Including a former U-Boat commander who seemed quite proud of his service and took pleasure in talking about what a safe pleasant place Germany was in the 1930s…And of course the odds are heavily stacked towards meeting Germans who served in the East simply because the vast majority of the German Army actually fought on the Eastern Front, the Western Front was a sideshow.
In response to another comment. See in context »Of course it wasn’t a “miracle” at all – the US team was better coached, faster, better conditioned, and hungrier. And had home ice. The Sovs were a veteran team living off past glories and well past their prime, a lot like the USSR at the time. The result only seems like a miracle to people who weren’t following hockey. A “miracle” is that pathetic Giants team beating the Patriots in the Superbowl 2 years ago.
Considering how little most Americans care about hockey it is very surprising how much that game is still talked about. Probably half the US didn’t even know the USSR had a hockey team until the day before the Olympics, and probably hasn’t watched a period of hockey since then. The fact that the hockey team consisted of “our kind of people”,i.e. middle and upper middle class white kids from good colleges, probably hasn’t hurt the media love.
Vanya, yeah it’s about racism and all those upper class “white” kids. You also don’t what your talking about when you say that USA was better coached, faster and better conditioned.” Perhaps you just watched the movie. None of those comments are true. It appears as though you’re the one who hasn’t watched a hockey game since 1980!
I preferred their game against the Flyers…now that was an ass kicking!
NBC goes on and on about it because they know, deep in their hearts that they showed it on tape delay (due to lack of confidence in the outcome, I believe) and gave away the ending to anyone who was half awake during the build up. They are on a 30 year guilt trip and they are desperately hoping that they can re-write their gaffe by pretending it didn’t happen – loudly and often.
For me and I fancy myself something of a sportsman, the greatest winter olympic moment will always be the downhill run of Franz Klammer. That, was sublime but not an American, so not interesting to NBC.
Your theory doesn’t hold up, dj: ABC, not NBC, was the network with the 1980 Olympics.
The Klammer run in ‘76 was, indeed a very memorable event. I don’t see it, though, as any more or less great than the ‘80 US Men’s Hockey win. The latter was special because the team was- rightly- a prohibitive longshot; Klammer was the reigning World Cup champion in the downhill, and the favorite to win the event. If ABC were covering these games, or if the late Jim McKay was alive and given a special commentary spot on NBC’s coverage, I’m sure we’d have seen a few replays of Klammer’s exciting run at Patscherkofel.
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s true this is a penile enhancment pill we can pop at any time for cause to do nothing other than chest beating. But since they’re being so dickish in regards to the mens figure skating results……..I think it’s time to pop another one: “Where were you when the Miracle On Ice occured” —A Poll.
American triumphalism, along with the militarization of it’s Coca Cola/WalMart Culture, is one of its many unbecoming features.