Did You Believe in Miracles?
Feb. 22nd, 2010 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteThirty years ago today, the US hockey team upset the formidable USSR team in a semifinal game at the 1980 Olympics. I was 11 years old.
It's funny how much has changed since then.
- The USSR is of course gone, and so is the state-sponsored sports machine that dominated the Olympics for years. Today's Russian men's hockey is good, but certainly no favorite.
- The Cold War is also far behind us, as is the Us vs. Them undercurrent that animated every match-up of American and Soviet athletes. It was even more pointed than usual in 1980, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the eventual American boycott of the Moscow-based Summer Olympics looming. That sort of rivalry doesn't exist at all today, even if many nations want to defeat American athletes and even with some nations that have taken the USSR's place in some ways. A match with Iran or North Korea just doesn't have the same meaning.
- The Olympics were played by amateurs. Well, officially amateurs since the Soviet team was paid by the Soviet government, which claimed that the team was not paid to play hockey. But certainly the college hockey players from the US, and from most other nations, were not pros from the NHL. Today, the Olympic hockey tournament features all-star teams of the NHL's best. It's more exciting to watch, but last night's upset US win over Canada is not 1/100 the shock of a bunch of young unknowns beating the world's most dominant team. And odds are that we will never see that sort of upset again.
- Note I said "the US hockey team." Now I need to specify "the US MEN's hockey team". There are a lot more sports in the current winter games, and a lot more opportunities for women to compete. I think, however, we are a long way from seeing an WNHL.
- The game was shown on tape delay. OK, that still happens a lot. But at least with hockey, there is a likelihood the game will be shown live on cable. In 1980, there was barely such a thing as cable. And there was almost no interest in hockey in the US. (OK, there isn't that much even now, but the Miracle on Ice probably did more to promote hockey in America than everything else anyone has ever tried. Combined.)
- If you wanted to avoid the final score and watch the game as "plausibly live," all you needed to do was skip the three or four stations showing evening news. Now, such a game - like everything else - would be liveblogged and tweeted and texted and posted in countless sites. You could still avoid the score if you didn't log on to the net, but I imagine it's that much harder.
- The Olympics were on ABC. (I miss that. One of the reasons I stopped watching the Olympics was that NBC's coverage never seemed as balanced as ABC's. Though, given how long it's been since ABC had the games, I could be misremembering.)
I didn't see the game, even on the ABC delay. It was Friday night and I was at a sleepover for Jewish middle school kids. While at the time I was not that religious (and would have been able to see the game at home, if I stayed awake long enough), I had to observe the Sabbath strictly (as I do now). We didn't know about the result till the next morning, when one of the adults running the weekend, having gone for a walk and found someone who subscribed to a newspaper in the community, told us right before morning services ended. At the time I was about to lead everyone in singing the final hymn of services. So I stood at the lectern and waiting as the adult told us things. Bit by bit. Till finally, having almost left us hanging, he added, " oh, and we won."
You can guess how we all reacted. All us 11- and 12- and 13-year old kids, most of whom were raised either to love our country or to loathe the USSR and its anti-Semitic regime. I still remember that raucous and lively cheer. The Cold War is over, my love of the Olympics gone, even my willingness to cheer without reserve dimmed. But that moment thirty years ago lingers.
As does the moment captured on tape and replayed ad infinitum, when Al Michaels (once again doing Olympic hockey) asked "do you believe in miracles?" I think, for one moment in time, we all did.
It's funny how much has changed since then.
- The USSR is of course gone, and so is the state-sponsored sports machine that dominated the Olympics for years. Today's Russian men's hockey is good, but certainly no favorite.
- The Cold War is also far behind us, as is the Us vs. Them undercurrent that animated every match-up of American and Soviet athletes. It was even more pointed than usual in 1980, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the eventual American boycott of the Moscow-based Summer Olympics looming. That sort of rivalry doesn't exist at all today, even if many nations want to defeat American athletes and even with some nations that have taken the USSR's place in some ways. A match with Iran or North Korea just doesn't have the same meaning.
- The Olympics were played by amateurs. Well, officially amateurs since the Soviet team was paid by the Soviet government, which claimed that the team was not paid to play hockey. But certainly the college hockey players from the US, and from most other nations, were not pros from the NHL. Today, the Olympic hockey tournament features all-star teams of the NHL's best. It's more exciting to watch, but last night's upset US win over Canada is not 1/100 the shock of a bunch of young unknowns beating the world's most dominant team. And odds are that we will never see that sort of upset again.
- Note I said "the US hockey team." Now I need to specify "the US MEN's hockey team". There are a lot more sports in the current winter games, and a lot more opportunities for women to compete. I think, however, we are a long way from seeing an WNHL.
- The game was shown on tape delay. OK, that still happens a lot. But at least with hockey, there is a likelihood the game will be shown live on cable. In 1980, there was barely such a thing as cable. And there was almost no interest in hockey in the US. (OK, there isn't that much even now, but the Miracle on Ice probably did more to promote hockey in America than everything else anyone has ever tried. Combined.)
- If you wanted to avoid the final score and watch the game as "plausibly live," all you needed to do was skip the three or four stations showing evening news. Now, such a game - like everything else - would be liveblogged and tweeted and texted and posted in countless sites. You could still avoid the score if you didn't log on to the net, but I imagine it's that much harder.
- The Olympics were on ABC. (I miss that. One of the reasons I stopped watching the Olympics was that NBC's coverage never seemed as balanced as ABC's. Though, given how long it's been since ABC had the games, I could be misremembering.)
I didn't see the game, even on the ABC delay. It was Friday night and I was at a sleepover for Jewish middle school kids. While at the time I was not that religious (and would have been able to see the game at home, if I stayed awake long enough), I had to observe the Sabbath strictly (as I do now). We didn't know about the result till the next morning, when one of the adults running the weekend, having gone for a walk and found someone who subscribed to a newspaper in the community, told us right before morning services ended. At the time I was about to lead everyone in singing the final hymn of services. So I stood at the lectern and waiting as the adult told us things. Bit by bit. Till finally, having almost left us hanging, he added, " oh, and we won."
You can guess how we all reacted. All us 11- and 12- and 13-year old kids, most of whom were raised either to love our country or to loathe the USSR and its anti-Semitic regime. I still remember that raucous and lively cheer. The Cold War is over, my love of the Olympics gone, even my willingness to cheer without reserve dimmed. But that moment thirty years ago lingers.
As does the moment captured on tape and replayed ad infinitum, when Al Michaels (once again doing Olympic hockey) asked "do you believe in miracles?" I think, for one moment in time, we all did.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: Feb. 22nd, 2010 08:34 pm (UTC)You'll be interested to know that there actually was an NWHL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Women%27s_Hockey_League) once upon a time. Its teams were mostly Canadian-based and rostered, and I even managed to attend and photograph a game at the Barbara Ann Scott Arena in old Nepean near Algonquin College here in Ottawa, between the former Ottawa Raiders and Montréal Axion. Apparently, the NWHL has ceased operations, but (Semi-)pro women's hockey is continuing to build itself up in Canada. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Women%27s_Hockey_League)
Would that I'd been able to watch the Canada-US game last night. :-(