Today's Article - The "Miracle on Ice"

This article is for quizzes on Monday December 21st..

The "Miracle on Ice" is the name in American popular culture for a medal-round men's ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, on Friday, February 22. The United States national team, made up of amateur and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet Union national team, which had won the gold medal in six of the seven previous Olympic games.

Team USA went on to win the gold medal by winning its last match over Finland. The Soviet Union took the silver medal by beating Sweden in its final game. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named the "Miracle on Ice" the Top Sports Moment of the 20th Century. As part of its 100th anniversary celebrations in 2008, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) chose the "Miracle on Ice" as the century's number-one international ice hockey story.

With a capacity of 8,500, the Field House was packed. The home crowd waved U.S. flags and sang patriotic songs such as "God Bless America". The game was aired live on CTV in Canada, but not ABC in the United States. Thus, American viewers who resided in or near Canadian border regions and received the CTV signal could watch the game live, but the rest of the United States had to wait for a delayed rebroadcast.

After the Soviets declined a request to move the game from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for U.S. television (this would have meant a 4 a.m. start in Moscow for Soviet viewers), ABC decided to broadcast the late-afternoon game on tape delay in prime time. To this day some of the people that watched the game on television still believe that it was live. Before the game, Brooks read his players a statement he had written out on a piece of paper, telling them that "You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours."