The Hockey Team of the Decade
Czechoslovakia won the silver medal in the previous Olympics, and was the world champion team in both 1976 and 1978. This was only two days after the US team had battled to a 2 to 2 tie with Norway, another game no one really thought they had a chance to win. For the hockey faithful in America, this was starting to be the best Olympics since 1960.
Maybe the crowd gave a home advantage to the hockey team, allowing them to put their emotions into the game so that it improved their play. As coach Herbie Brooks said, "We had our minds going flat-out and our legs under control." His style was hard and fast skating, and working together as a team, and in that game each player showed how well he understood that style of hockey. The Olympics ice hockey rink is 100 feet wide, which means there is a lot of open ice, and Coach Brooks style tended toward breaking toward open ice and skating hard. He had adopted the European style of hockey in order to be able to fight against it most effectively. As he said "We had to cram two or three years of experience playing this way into five months of exhibition games."
There are always key players on hockey teams, and Coach Brooks knew he would need a very good goalie, who at times could give a superior performance. Jim Craig, the former Boston University goalie, came through against Czechoslovakia. The opposing team goalie, Jiri Kralik, did not have a good night. The entire US team was young, with an average age of twenty-two, and perhaps a young team did not have enough experience to know that they weren't skilled enough to beat the top European teams.
When all of the teams arrived in Lake Placid, right wing Dave Silk spent some time looking over the other teams and nationalities. He saw that the Czechs had "Russian muscles", which meant that it wasn't hard for them to hold a defenseman at bay during the game. He found the East Germans the most unsettling, for they used their spare time to play a game called Submarine, where they kept sinking American battleships. Coach Brooks knew that his team was comparing themselves and told them "You go up to the tiger, spit him in the eye, and then shoot him." The strong hand of the coach, the amazing effort of the young team, and the enthusiasm of the crowd allowed the team to bring home the gold medal.
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