Mike Eruzione, a Berwick Academy grad who captained the famous “Miracle On Ice” hockey squad, tried his best Wednesday to get through talking about the legendary 1980 victory over the Russians.
But try as he might, Eruzione couldn’t do it without losing his composure, pausing, choking back tears, before resuming.
Eruzione, now 71, is best known as the captain of the Winter Olympics U.S. national team that defeated the Soviet Union in the famous “Miracle on Ice” game in Lake Placid, New York.
He even scored the game-winning goal, made even sweeter by the fact the U.S. was the host team.
The U.S. has not won men’s gold at the Olympics since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” team but is gearing up for a hopeful victory at next month’s games in Milan.
As a run-up to the effort by the USA Hockey team to try to end the 46-year gold drought, Eruzione, co-author of the national bestseller, “The Making of a Miracle: The Untold Story of the Captain of The Gold Medal-Winning 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team,” appeared Wednesday on a podcast reminiscing about his life as a young hockey player and, of course, the 1980 gold.
Podcaster Kim Carrigan, a former longtime Boston TV news anchor, asked him, “Do you still get teary-eyed if you think about it or watch it?”
“It’s a proud feeling of knowing all the time and work and effort that I put in as a player, the opportunity that I had to be there, the sacrifices that my father and mother made” Eruzione replied.
“My dad worked three jobs – sorry,” Eruzione added, choking back tears, pausing to regain his composure. “My mother took care of six kids…not knowing I was going to be a successful hockey player or an Olympian.
“But I think you look back on that and the pride you take knowing so many people helped.”
Eruzione grew up in Winthrop, Massachusetts, where he captained the varsity hockey team.
He then went to Berwick Academy in South Berwick, Maine, to fine-tune his hockey skills in a New England prep environment.
After leaving Berwick, Eruzione attended Boston University, playing hockey, naturally, averaging more than 20 goals a season.
BU coach Jack Parker called Eruzione “Pete Rose on skates.”
He later captained the 1980 Olympic hockey squad, scoring the winning goal against the Soviets and helping the Americans win the gold medal against Finland.
The U.S. team first had to beat the heavily-favored Soviets to get to Finland in their final game to clinch the Olympic gold medal.
The Soviets took silver and Sweden bronze.
Eruzione’s winning goal against the Soviet Union has become one of the most replayed highlights in American sports, and was chosen by Sports Illustrated in 1999 as the greatest American sports moment of the twentieth century.
In 2008, it was voted the greatest highlight of all time by ESPN viewers.
An HBO documentary about the 1980 Olympic hockey team featured Eruzione talking about his winning goal against the Soviet team.
“My friends always like to joke with me “‘Three more inches to the left, you’d been painting bridges.’”
He retired from competition after the Olympics, despite contract offers from the New York Rangers, stating that he’d already reached the pinnacle of achievement.
Ronald Reagan had help containing the “Evil Empire:” from a hockey player named Mike Eruzione.
After all, with Olympic gold on the line amid the unpredictable Cold War, the Russians were hoping to bring gold – and the political fruits of beating the U.S. – home to the Kremlin.
In stunning, unexpected victory, U.S. Hockey claimed the bragging rights that also arguably had political benefit: helping set the stage for bringing down the Berlin Wall (Iron Curtain) a decade later.
