The Miracle on Ice

In honor of my hometown and the 30th anniversary of The Game, here are some little know facts about the Miracle on Ice:

- The game was not broadcast live except on Canadian TV. Most of the USA saw it on tape delay. According to polls, most of the people who watched the game on television did not know the outcome.

- There was one celebrity in the crowd: Jamie Farr (AKA Klinger on M*A*S*H). He was so famous at the time that the ABC cameras focused on him 10-20 seconds, but never said who he was or why the cameras were locked in on him.

- Many people assume that the US won the gold medal by beating the USSR. However, the medal round was a round-robin, not a single elimination format like it is today. Under those rules, it was mathematically possible for the US to finish anywhere from 1st to 4th.


- Of the 20 players on the US team, 13 eventually played in the NHL.[38] Five of them went on to play over 500 NHL games, and three would play over 1,000 NHL games:

- Eric Heiden won five gold medals at the 1980 Olympics but could not get a ticket for the U.S.-Soviet hockey game. ABC had him sit behind Michaels and Dryden on a little platform.

- People have said the US crowd went wild and it was one of the loudest buildings in the history of American sports, which it may have been at the end. Since the USSR was greatly favored, for most of the game the crowd was very quiet. There's a moment in the third period where the announcer says: "Tinally, the crowd comes alive." The second period was dominated by the Soviets and the score could easily have been 4-2 or 5-2 by the end of that period.

- In the 2004 move "Miracle", Michaels redid the hockey commentary for the game but when it came to that final, memorable line "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!!" they used the original recording. Michaels insisted he could never repeat that line.

Bonus:
The game was played in Lake Placid, NY in the Adirondack Mountains.

Melvil Dewey, who invented the Dewey Decimal System, designed what was then called "Placid Park Club" in 1895 and kept it open through the winter. By 1921, the area could boast a ski jump, speed skating venue and ski association, and in 1929, and was able to convince the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Lake Placid had the best winter sports facilities in the nation.

Along with St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Innsbruck, Austria, Lake Placid is one of the three places to have twice hosted the Winter Olympic Games. Lake Placid was the first location in North America to host two Olympic games. Los Angeles became the other when it hosted the Summer Olympic Games for the second time in 1984.

More at Sports Illustrated and Wikipedia.