MEMORIES FROM THE MIRACLE ON ICE
TIM WESLEY chats with goaltender Jim Craig about U.S. hockey’s proudest moment
These days, when 9month-old Shae sits on her grandpa’s knee, she’s likely to hear stories about hungry caterpillars, wild things and cats in hats. But someday, her grandpa will break the ice and tell her tales about sticks, pucks and kick saves.
Jim Craig will tell the story of a hockey game — played 40 years ago Saturday — and of a hockey team that captured the heart and lifted the spirit of a country. It’s the granddaddy of American sports stories — a memory for all ages and for the ages — and Shae’s grandpa enjoys telling it.
“It’s always a pleasure,” said Mr. Craig, the goalie who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to an unbelievable win against the Soviet Union on its way to the gold medal. “It’s just so rewarding when you meet people and they react to how old they were, where they were, what it meant to them. Then you see how generational it’s been, with young kids who’ve watched the movie ‘Miracle.’
“There are so many positives our team has been able to do for so many people, things that have nothing to do with hockey. We all need mentors and people who inspire us in our lives, and our team did that.”
As he speaks, you think about little Shae, born last year on the day before her grandpa’s 62nd birthday, and realize she’s in for a real treat when her magical day comes.
“I think you should always live your life knowing that someone you love is going to be looking at it and wanting to know more about you,” Mr. Craig said. “The story about 1980 is one chapter of my life, and it’ll be fun telling her.”
Learning the game
Mr. Craig’s story starts in North Easton, Mass., just south of Boston, in a home jammed with eight boys and girls and a dog, and starring two doting parents, Margaret and Don. Mr. Craig started playing goalie when he was 11, and Margaret was the consummate hockey mom, driving him wherever and whenever for games and practices, and even sharpening his skates. Don, meanwhile, worked seven days a week at two jobs, providing for the family yet always finding time to offer encouragement and support in the kids’ endeavors.
“I don’t think until you’re a parent, you understand all the personal sacrifices people do to provide you with opportunities,” Mr. Craig said. “But when you’re smart enough to understand how lucky you are to have people who care about you and put you in a position to try to fulfill your dream, and they’re just supportive the whole way, that’s when you have a really special relationship and that’s what mine was with my parents.”
Buoyed by their support, at Oliver Ames High School and later at Boston University, Mr. Craig fashioned a stellar winning record to match his hypercompetitive intensity. As a junior at BU, he finished unbeaten and helped the Terriers to the 1977-78 national championship. By that time, Margaret had succumbed to cancer; before she died, Mr. Craig would often take a train after practice to sit by her bedside and dab her dry lips with Qtips. Her death left a vast hole in the family, especially for Don.
“My father became a shadow of himself,” Mr. Craig said.
Crisis of confidence
With his success at BU, Mr. Craig could have turned pro but he opted to try out for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, a dream he talked about frequently with his mom.
Herb Brooks, who had just coached the University of Minnesota to a national championship, was named coach of the Olympic team. He hand-picked players from the top college programs, guys such as Mr. Craig who had competed fiercely against each other for years. Brooks then overhauled the team’s training regimen and playing style, equipping it to compete with the Soviets, who had won four consecutive Olympic gold medals. Along the way, he had legendary run-ins with many players, some captured in “Miracle,” and all designed to unite a disparate group against a common foe: their coach.
“It was all part of his master plan from the very beginning,” said Craig Patrick, who served as Brooks’ assistant coach and later became general manager of the Penguins.
As the team prepared, the American public was focused on other common concerns. The country was mired in a malaise, a sentiment captured by President Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech in July 1979. The economy was struggling, lines to purchase gasoline were prevalent and geopolitical events were boiling. The mood worsened in November, when Iranian students took 52 Americans hostage, and in December, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
Making of a miracle
With those troubles as a backdrop, the Olympics began in mid-February 1980 and fans began turning their attention to something brewing in the hockey tournament. While the Soviets were routing their opponents, the U.S., seeded seventh when the games began, managed an opening tie against Sweden, then ran off four consecutive wins. That set up a showdown with the Soviets at 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, with a berth in the gold medal game at stake. ABCTV offered the Soviets money to move the game to prime time, but they declined, so it was shown on tape delay at 8 p.m.
Despite getting blown out by the Soviets, 10-3, in an exhibition game a week before the Olympics — had Brooks scheduled that game to stoke the Soviets’ overconfidence? — Mr. Craig and his teammates believed in the seemingly impossible.
“I always knew that with the conditioning we had, with the players we had, if we could stay close, we had a really good chance to beat them,” he said.
From the opening faceoff, Mr. Craig faced a relentless barrage of shots and the U.S. fell behind, 2-1. With just one second remaining in the first period, the Soviets’ supreme goaltender, Vladislav Tretiak, allowed the tying goal off a sloppy rebound and the hometown arena went bonkers.
The Soviets peppered Mr. Craig and took a 3-2 lead after two periods, but Mark Johnson, who later played for the Penguins, tied the game in the third. Then, with exactly 10 minutes left in the game, team captain Mike Eruzione scored to put the U.S. ahead and send the crowd into another frenzy. Mr. Craig then turned away shot after shot until broadcaster Al Michaels’ final, celebrated call: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” In the goal crease, Mr. Craig jumped in the air and was buried beneath teammates when he came down to earth.
Before continuing to celebrate, Mr. Craig had to take care of a little, uh, business first. After skating off the ice following the biggest game of his life, he found himself waiting in a line — a line to pee in a cup.
“It was pretty funny,” he said. “After every game, the Olympic officials would pick two players from each team for random drug testing. So there we were, standing with two of the Soviet players waiting to go to the bathroom. And it took awhile, because you don’t have much liquid in your body after you work that hard.”
Two days later, after more hard work, the U.S. team captured gold with a 4-2 win over Finland. Mr. Craig’s postgame celebration became legendary: After someone draped an American flag around his shoulders, he skated around the rink peering into the stands and asking, “Where’s my father?” an emotionally charged scene that endeared him to millions of fans watching on television.
“I wanted to make sure my father knew I was thinking of him and my mother,” Mr. Craig said. “My dad was just very proud of what our team accomplished. The Olympics and the gold medal gave him a shot in the arm, a reason to really feel good about himself. For our family, we got our father back.”
Don died of a brain aneurysm eight years later, but he lived long enough to realize the powerful legacy created by that victory, for the Craig family and for the country. Over the past 40 years, countless fans have told Mr. Craig what it meant to them.
“I’ve had so many people say that seeing me with the flag and looking for my dad helped in their relationship with their father,” he said. “I know a gentleman who became an incredible doctor, but back then he was going through the stress of life, exams and getting into med school. He was going to take his life, and then he caught on to our games in the Olympics and it changed his life. It gave him the courage and inspiration to tackle a demon that was trying to make him be less than what he could be. To me, the greatest thing about our victory is the way it’s been able to inspire people in a very positive manner.”
Story for the ages
Thirteen of the 20 Olympians used the victory as a springboard to playing in the National Hockey League, with several playing more than 500 games each. Bearing the burden of Olympic-sized expectations, Mr. Craig signed initially with the Atlanta Flames but was soon traded to his hometown Boston Bruins, adding another layer of pressure. He played one season there, finished with a 9-7-6 record and was released the next year. Two years later he was set for a fresh start in Minnesota, playing well and about to sign a three-year contract, when he tore a hamstring, ending his pro career after just 30 games.
“Nobody could have been prepared to deal with what we were forced into after the Olympics,” he said. “It was a challenge and a great learning opportunity.”
So he learned, reinvented himself and found success in business as a sales and marketing executive. In 2007, he founded Gold Medal Strategies and serves as the company’s president, touring the country as a motivational speaker and executive-level trainer. He just published his second book, “We Win,” in which he wrote about how and why the 1980 team won and suggested that it wasn’t a miracle at all.
Mr. Craig credits Brooks, who later served as a scout and coach of the Penguins before he died in a car accident in 2003, with paving the way.
“When you do something epic like we did and people can’t figure out why it happened, terms like miracle come up,” Mr. Craig said. “But Herb Brooks drove change. He had a vision. He shared that vision. All the guys on that team committed to that shared dream. And what we were able to do was really the result of hard work and everything going right.”
Miracle or not, it’s still a story for the ages. One that Jim Craig’s granddaughter will enjoy hearing someday.
The Next Page is different every week: Will Tomer, wtomer@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1932.