I remember watching the Miracle on Ice 30 years ago today. I remember how nervous I was. Team USA was ahead with only a few minutes left. The dangerous Soviet team was pushing hard, trying to even it up, and I was wishing that the clock would move faster. I just wanted the game to end before the red team could get one past Jim Craig. And then 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . yes, I do believe in miracles Al.
It was something like a miracle. The Soviets were the best professional team in the world. The Americans were a bunch of college kids, a lot of them Boston University Terriers. It was amazing.
Those were tough times for America. We had just dragged ourselves out of the 70s. Vietnam and all it carried with it, Nixon and Watergate, civil unrest, race riots, recession, oil embargoes, stagflation, Carter and malaise. If you think national pride was at a low ebb during Bush’s second term, you don’t remember the 70s.
And then a miracle happened. People stood up in taverns around the country and sang the national anthem. Because the felt like it. People began to chant “U.S.A.” Americans began to feel good and even a touch of pride. It was something we had grown unaccustomed to.
That’s something that will never happen again. Not just like that anyway. It wasn’t just that our kids had beaten our arch-enemy’s winter soldiers. It was the way a simple game made us all feel. That was the miracle.
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