Why There Will Never be Another Miracle on Ice

Forty years ago today, Americans collectively experienced one of the most scintillating moments in Olympic, indeed sports, history, as the U.S. hockey team defeated the Soviet Union, 4-3, in what would forever be known as the Miracle on Ice.

This kind of moment won’t ever happen again, and not just because there’s no longer a Soviet Union, or because Russia isn't the military threat it once was.

That hockey game defined a time in this country’s history, bound a nation of disenfranchised citizens behind a single cause, and emblazoned itself on the national zeitgeist. It’s been immortalized in books, documentaries and Disney movies. And it’s a moment and an exuberance that not only isn’t likely to ever be repeated, but, sadly, cannot be repeated, at least not in the international sports arena.

The Miracle on Ice pitted amateurs against professionals, farm boys and college students from the Midwest and New England versus a fearsome team of seasoned Red Army soldiers whose primary job description was to represent the U.S.S.R. on skates. It was David versus Goliath with slap shots instead of slingshots. It was Us, the freedom-loving beacon of democracy, versus the Communist, Afghanistan-invading Them.

Up until a generation ago, the Eastern Bloc countries, with their state-sponsored sports programs, had a significant advantage over athletes from the free world. Invariably, medal counts favored the Soviet Union, East Germany, China and Czechoslovakia, with the mighty U.S. scratching against the side of the winners’ podium. It was no state secret that in the Communist model, those athletes were, for all intents and purposes, professionals. Perhaps they weren’t paid multi-million dollar salaries, but with subsidized housing, food, clothing and other amenities – all the things that would disqualify American athletes from competing – they were professionals nonetheless, freed of the usual family obligations so they could devote their time to honing their skills in the sporting arena.

When the International Olympic Committee relaxed its rules banning professional athletes in a commendable but misguided attempt to level the playing field, it virtually assured the world would never again witness a drama on par with The Miracle. The United States assembled its famed “Dream Team” of NBA stars to compete in the 1992 Summer Games, and as expected Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, et al, romped their way to basketball gold. Dream teams, it seemed, had replaced teams that dream.

In 1998 the National Hockey League jumped in, suspending league play to allow its marquee players to compete in the winter pageant. Only six years earlier, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the thawing of the Cold War, NHL teams had begun integrating players from the former Soviet republics into their rosters. For NHLers, as a result, international play now meant facing off against your own teammates in a different color uniform. The intimidation and awe Western players often felt playing against the Red Army squad were replaced by familiarity and congeniality. That familiarity extended to the fans; favorite players during the rest of the season were now opposing our national team, and even as we still rooted for the USA, there was no longer animosity toward our adversaries, whether Russian, Czech, or Swedish. We knew we’d again be rooting for these same players to help our Bruins, Maple Leafs or Devils get into the playoffs in just a couple of weeks.

The floodgates are open now. The rivalry once embodied by the U.S. vs. the U.S.S.R. won’t be replicated again. Even if North Korea fields an ice hockey team, and that squad completely dominates the international arena for the next 20 years, no team from a country with Kim Jong-un as its leader will come close to cowing stars of the NHL. And it’s highly unlikely the Taliban will be admitted into the Olympics anytime soon, even if they could skate.

In many sports, no longer is our country being represented by the everyman gladiator of the Olympian ideal, those who trained and sacrificed so much for the express goal of hearing chants of “USA” and the Star Spangled Banner played from atop a podium. Instead, our Olympic “heroes” are often the same well-paid icons we watch on TV, and whose images beam from posters on our kids’ bedroom walls. As a result, sought-after Olympic slots, once open to student athletes and neighbors from all walks of life, are now the exclusive domain of the elite supermen already raking in the big bucks in the pro leagues.

During a certain time in history, allowing professionals to compete in the Olympics might have seemed like a good idea.  However, with the fall of communism and the socialist way of grooming athletes, it’s a solution for a disparity that no longer exists.

As a hockey fan, I’ll likely still watch the Olympic matches. But I’ll keep my Blu-ray of the Disney movie Miracle close at hand.  

(A version of this column originally appeared in The North Jersey Record in 2014)

Gary Frisch is founder and president of Swordfish Communications, a full-service public relations agency in Laurel Springs, N.J. He is also the author of “Strike Four,” a novel about minor league baseball. Visit Swordfish online at www.swordfishcomm.com.