"Miracle" and the incoherence of 140 Twitter characters
by Hawerchuk on Feb 24, 2010 11:22 AM EST
in Zzz...2010 Olympics
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PrintI'll have to admit that I have yet to figure out the finer points of twitter - our blogging software automatically posts links for us on it, but beyond that, I'd have to say that I'm a neophyte. I did just figure out this morning how to see things that other people have written directly to me. Like this one in reference to my post where I suggested that the US winning their game against Canada - where they were 1.5-to-1 underdogs - was not a miracle:
"ummm maybe you shud hav waited 2 03 3 days to stop being bitter b4 u wrote that know it all hockey column. real fans knew that...oh n 12 of 20 1980 USA team members played n the NHL n only 6 of those had long careers. Not exactly "NHL ready college kids""
That's actually two separate comments, btw. The 140-character limit makes it tough to fit your thoughts in.
Look, I've made my opinion abundantly clear: the best American hockey team ever assembled at the international level is the 1996 World Cup team. Seriously, look at that defense: Leetch, Housley, Kevin and Derian Hatcher, Chelios, Suter and Mathieu Schneider. (And Shawn Chambers, for what it's worth.) Richter in goal. At worst, four hall of famers at forward.
And we need to stop the myth-making around the 1980 US Olympic team. It was a good team - there were six players who jumped straight to real roles the NHL right after it was done. 17 players had been drafted either by the NHL or WHA or both. Eleven players had significant NHL careers. Four players - Harrington, Schneider, Eruzione and Suter - had already played professional hockey and had their eligibility re-instated; they were on the roster to provide veteran leadership and we wouldn't have expected them to continue on to NHL careers. These were not the typical US olympians of the era.
To put it another way: they were no Switzerland. Jonas Hiller and Mark Streit are more skilled than anyone on the American roster was at the time of the 1980 Olympics, but will any other Swiss player crack an NHL roster after the games are over? Severin Blindenbacher is one of their top defensemen, and he was a 9th round pick and minor-league journeyman. And yet, the Swiss still have a 17% chance to beat the US today.
Or to put it another way:
USA 1996 > USA 2010 >> USA 1980 > SUI 2010
I've lived in the US for a long time. I know some people still see the 1980 Olympics as payback for the Russians being first to put a dog in space. But there's nothing wrong with admitting that the US has a good hockey team as opposed to being lucky, is there? The Canadians, Russians, Czechs and Swedes would never pretend that they were underdogs at these Olympics (the Finns and the Slovaks are underdogs), so why should we pretend that an American team that's competitive with this group is an underdog?
Here's that 1980 roster just to jog your memory:
| Pos. | Name | Age | Draft | NHL '80 | NHL '81 | Tot |
| G | Jim Craig | 21 | 4th/9th | 4 | 23 | 30 |
| D | Ken Morrow | 22 | 3th/8th | 39 | 98 | 677 |
| D | Mike Ramsey | 19 | 1st | 26 | 80 | 1185 |
| C | Mark Johnson | 22 | 4th/3rd | 22 | 78 | 706 |
| RW | Mike Eruzione | 25 | ND/2nd | |||
| LW | Dave Silk | 21 | 4th | 2 | 59 | 262 |
| D | Bill Baker | 22 | 3rd/5th | 11 | 149 | |
| C | Neal Broten | 20 | 3rd | 22 | 1234 | |
| D | Dave Christian | 20 | 2nd | 15 | 80 | 1111 |
| RW | Steve Christoff | 21 | 2nd | 34 | 74 | 283 |
| RW | John Harrington | 22 | ||||
| G | Steve Janaszak | 22 | 1 | 3 | ||
| LW | Rob McClanahan | 22 | 3rd | 23 | 58 | 258 |
| D | Jack O'Callahan | 22 | 6th/8th | 421 | ||
| C | Mark Pavelich | 21 | 378 | |||
| LW | Buzz Schneider | 25 | 6th/3rd | 4 | ||
| RW | Eric Strobel | 21 | 8th | |||
| D | Bob Suter | 22 | 7th/7th | |||
| LW | Phil Verchota | 22 | 5th/7th | |||
| C | Mark Wells | 21 | 13th |
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my twitter response
Thank you for using my twitter response. I apologize for the use of “twitterease”. I can’t tell my daughters dinner in ready in less than 140 characters so sometimes it’s tough to convey a point.
I felt the tone of your column was knee jerk and bitter due to your countrymen going down. Team Canada is an excellent collection of talent. I thought they would play better after the scare to the Swiss.
My point to you is the 1980 upset of the Soviets is very special to Americans for the time it happened. The fact it happened so shortly aftter the team was crushed in New York before the games and the fact that the team was assembled from non-professionals.
To your point that Sunday’s game was not that big of an upset. Ok. I’ll agree with you. I do hold line with the point that more is expected of Canada than America and the end result is easier to criticize for Canada than America.
Ryan MIller was out of his mind Sunday. He is likely to come down. I am a huge Devils fan and I believe Martin Brodeur id the greatest goal tender in the history of professional hockey. He is receiving too much blame.
I enjoy your blog. You are very knowledegable.
Lance Burson
Luca Sbisa probably should be in the NHL. Dude completely dominates the WHL and has almost played 50 NHL games before he’s hit 20. If you actually see him play in the WHL, you’d realize he doesn’t belong. He even played some playoff games last year for
Yannick Weber still needs more seasoning in the AHL, but he has been a dominant junior player and was a top rookie in the AHL last year.
I was quite surprised that Roman Wick didn’t stay around the North American professional ranks, but I think he’d have some success if he were here. Not a lot, mind you.
And hey, Hnat Domincelli played a decent amount of NHL games before going for the security the Swiss league offers.
So it’s not quite up to the Team USA standard of 6 guys that had significant NHL careers, but it’s not far, either. Combine that with the fact that Hiller and Streit are in their prime years, whereas the USA team was still quite young, and I don’t think 2010 Switzerland and 1980 USA is significantly different.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
Isn't part of the myth-making founded in the USSR dominance?
I found the comparisons of Sunday’s preliminary game to 1980 irritating, and the Burkeian talk of the U.S. being massive underdogs is obviously psychological ops over reality.
However, doesn’t the myth-refuting comparison of USA 1980 to Switzerland 2010 (or anyone, really) require the context of the oppressive presence of the USSR team, which really has no 2010 parallel?
I’m sure you’re reacting to your own encounters with American “payback for the Russians being first to put a dog in space” types (oy, the perils of Twitter), but for me the legend of the 1980 team wasn’t that they weren’t good (and some MSM even apparently don’t realize they trained together well before the tourney). It’s that they beat a team made up of several stars who routinely thumped all competition. The rosters were not the same over time, of course, but there’s no modern day comparison to the USSR program that had beaten NHL teams and dominated every Olympics since 1960. Essentially, any team knocking off the Soviets in 1980 — save for maybe Czechoslovakia — would have been seen as miraculous to some degree.
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Good point. Any Miracle on Ice story will play up the fact that of the game 3 days before the tournament started when the Soviets trounced the US (and, if i remember correctly, had even beat some NHL teams around the same time)
Glen Sather is a Hockey Genius.
http://glensathersucks.com/
http://twitter.com/ThGeneralissimo
I completely agreed with what I thought was your original point – that the US win on Sunday was not nearly the upset the US media made it out to be. The US 2010 team is made up of any number of star players who could single-handedly change the shape and outcome of a hockey game, and not only in goal. To see fans, even knowledgeable hockey fans, buying the media hype, is more a statement about (1) the power of the media to shape opinion and (2) the gullibility of americans.
Whether it was more or less of an upset than the Miracle on Ice…well thats a different debate I dont really care about. The Miracle on Ice was such a product of its time, such a social event, as much as a sporting event, that it would almost be impossible to compare in my mind.
Glen Sather is a Hockey Genius.
http://glensathersucks.com/
http://twitter.com/ThGeneralissimo
Posted earlier this morning...
http://www.fromtherink.com/2010/2/24/1324317/2010-u-s-v-canada-1980-u-s-v
…basically, on the same topic, with some of Gabriel’s same arguments but a different tack.
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
http://bettmansnightmare.blogspot.com/
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 24, 2010 12:52 PM EST reply actions
The blog writer has obviously spent ZERO time with hockey in the last 30 years.
The 1980 team captured a moment, lightning in a bottle. No one is taking that away or making it seem like this was the best US team ever assembled. They were not a juggernaut and while they had 4 guys who had pro experience, the other 17 had ZERO. The USSR, CZECHS, and other Eastern Bloc countries were full time professionals. The USSR team had guys who had been competing in the Soviet Elite League, probably the 2nd best league in the world at the time, for a long, long time plus they had Tretiak who was at the time arguably the best goalie in the world.
Add to the fact that 10 days prior, the USA team was pounded by this exact USSR team 10-2.
Is the 1996 USA World Cup of Hockey team better than this team??? Maybe. But that means that if this USA team wins Gold it will be that much better. Understand that this USA team was built in the same mold that the 1980 team was. Many talented players were left home because they wanted the RIGHT players, not the best players. Canada got the perceived best players….how’d that work out for them thus far?
He is also quite myopic in the fact that in 2006, with much of the same players, and arguably a lesser goaltender in Martin Gerber, the Swiss beat the Canadians 2-0.
USA can lose. They probably wont, but they can. Switzerland can win. Switzerland can go all the way too! If Hiller gets hot and they get some opportune scoring. In a tournament of this nature anything can happen. Anything.
Here’s the kicker about 1980 though. USA Hockey was not on the charts. At the time Americans compromised roughly 15% of all the NHL talent. An all time low save the first few decades of the NHL. Since 1980, USA Hockey has become a legitimate contender in all international tournaments. If it were not for the 1980 team, that simply would not be the case. The 1980 team spawned a generation of American hockey players with the likes of Richter, Leetch, Modano, Roenick, Amonte, et al that served on the 1996 team. So, to go back to the blogger’s comparison, no 1980 team…..no 1996 team…PERIOD. And to see the contributions of the 2nd generation of American hockey players spawned by the big deal of 1980…one need look no further from the fact that this year USA Hockey has won the 17U, 18U, World Jrs and is now the #1 seed in the Olympics.
How about a little perspective?
I largely agree
When I gave my own commentary, I alluded to this point, but you said it much better. The United States is a good team and the only who put in a “miracle” of a performance was Ryan Miller, and even then, he saw a lot of those Canadian shots.
That said, they were underdogs against Canada since it was Canada’s home ice and on paper, Canada still has the superior roster in all positions. Yet, as the game itself played out, the work ethic and aggressive play by the US combined with Canada not playing to their full potential for one reason (lack of chemistry) or another (just being bad, in the case of Pronger, Perry, Richards) evened things up. A few deflections here and there and that’s the win.
The US doesn’t beat Canada often in the Olympics and it’s worth fanfare. Yet, it wasn’t a miracle; it doesn’t carry the same gravity as 1980’s win over the USSR did. The US is a good team and they beat a great-on-paper team by being more effective in the game.
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According to scoresandodds.com, the line on the US/Canada game Sunday was US +250/Canada -300. Perhaps it started out as a 1.50 proposition but the line dramatically changed before the puck dropped, for whatever that means.
As for the perception of the 1980 upset, the fact that the Soviets trounced the US 10-3 in an exhibition game in New York right before the Olympics had most people feeling the Americans were woefully outclassed. Watch the video of that game sometime, the goals were just beautiful. Of course, it also helped to plant an overconfident seed in the heads of the Soviet players.
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