Mike Eruzione and Feb. 22: Can Team USA Add to the 'Miracle on Ice' Legend?

mike eruzione remains central to the story as the United States meets Canada for an Olympic men's hockey gold medal game on February 22, the same date Team USA beat the Soviet Union in 1980. Taylor Heise, the U. S. women's hockey gold medalist, said she believed the men can replicate that success.

Feb. 22 and the 'Miracle on Ice' legacy

February 22 already carries outsized meaning for American hockey fans because it is the anniversary of Team USA’s victory over the Soviet Union in the medal round at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Jim Craig celebrated that win on Feb. 22, 1980, a result that helped immortalize names such as Eruzione, Craig, Johnson and Schneider.

The game took place at the height of the Cold War and pitched a Herb Brooks-led team of collegiate amateurs against a Soviet Union side that had dominated international play for nearly two decades. At the time the Olympics were for amateurs, a classification the Soviets only loosely fit.

Mike Eruzione’s role and memory

Mike Eruzione was captain of the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team, and he scored the winning goal against the Soviet Union in the semifinals before leading his team to a gold medal with a win over Finland. He has said he wasn’t thinking about the larger meaning in the moment: “I was just enjoying it, ” he said, laughing.

Eruzione recalled not understanding the full scale of the victory until the team visited the White House, describing that moment as his “holy s— this thing is huge” realization. He also emphasized that his sense of self did not come from Olympic success: “I was very happy with who I was before the Olympics and very happy with who I am today, ” he said.

How the 1980 team lived and competed

The U. S. players stayed in a little village in Lake Placid, N. Y., for the Olympics, a place with three TV stations and obviously no social media. Eruzione called the arrangements “a little cocoon, ” saying the players weren’t aware of what was being said or written about them and didn’t go downtown to bars or restaurants, instead staying with teammates and focusing on the competition.

That isolation, he said, let the team feed off of one another’s positive energy without spending effort blocking out critics. He urged current athletes to do the same: “There’s always going to be somebody that doesn’t like something that you do or are doing, ” he said. “You’re always going to find somebody that’s critical of you. So ignore it. People can be cruel. And jealous. But we can’t control any of that anyway. Laugh it off or smile and just move on with your life. ”

Taylor Heise, superstition and the date

Taylor Heise, the women's gold medalist for the United States, said she almost fell out of her chair when she learned the U. S. -Canada men's gold medal clash was scheduled for Feb. 22. She said she does not subscribe to astrology or numerology and called the idea of lucky and unlucky numbers—like 7 being lucky and 13 unlucky—“nonsense, ” but she acknowledged the emotional weight the date carries for American hockey.

A New York photograph and an exhibition game

An image from the run-up to the 1980 Games shows American hockey player Mike Eruzione #21 shaking hands with the Russian team during an exhibition game against the Soviet Union on Feb. 9, 1980, at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York.

For fans and players alike, Feb. 22 is already being treated as the greatest day in American hockey history; with the U. S. -Canada gold medal game set for that date, the team has one shot to match the moment that began in Lake Placid in 1980.