What year was Ice Hockey's "Miracle on Ice" game?

The answer is: 1980

The 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid witnessed what many consider the greatest sports upset of all time. The Soviet team rolled into town with their fancy uniforms and perfectly groomed mustaches, having won the last four Olympic golds. They even crushed Team USA 10-3 in an exhibition game right before the Olympics, just to remind everyone who was boss.

Coach Herb Brooks assembled his team like he was casting a college production of "Slap Shot." These were literally just university players who probably had midterms to study for. Meanwhile, the Soviets brought their A-team of seasoned professionals who looked like they bench-pressed Zambonis for fun. Their captain, Boris Mikhailov, had a mustache that alone had more experience than the entire American roster.

The actual game was pure edge-of-your-seat entertainment. Every time the Soviets scored, the Americans answered back like they didn't get the memo about being intimidated. Soviet coach Viktor Tikhonov made the galaxy-brain decision to pull his legendary goalie, Vladislav Tretiak, after the first period. With 10 minutes left, Mike Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal, and suddenly the impossible seemed possible. The final minutes were a red, white, and blue carnival of chaos.

When the final buzzer sounded and Al Michaels asked if we believed in miracles, an entire nation jumped off their couches and screamed "YES!" The Americans still had to beat Finland for the gold medal, but they'd already accomplished the impossible. The team that looked like it just walked out of a campus rec center had taken down the unbeatable Soviets.

The story was so incredible it got not one but two Hollywood treatments: "Miracle on Ice" in 1981 starring Karl Malden as Brooks, and "Miracle" in 2004 with Kurt Russell taking the coaching whistle. In October 2024, Congress introduced a bill to award members of the 1980 team the Congressional Gold Medal.