The Last Pure Olympic Moment

There are times in our lives, admittedly rare, when a sports arena can take on the feel of a battlefield, when our opponents can come to symbolize our enemies, and when our games can assume – in our minds, anyway – the seriousness of war.So it was 25 years ago this week, when the U.S. Olympic hockey team beat the mighty USSR in Lake Placid in a game that for many came to represent a microcosm of the Cold War. It was nothing of the sort, of course – the night before the game, a semifinal match that set up the U.S.-Finland gold medal contest two days later, the American goalie Jim Craig and Soviet winger Sergei Makarov whiled away a few pleasant hours playing a video game called “Centipede” – but it was sold to us as a triumph of capitalism over communism, of pure amateurism over cynical, covert professionalism, and of plain old Good over Evil.For those of us old enough to have been scared sleepless by the specter of the Red Menace, the game between the U.S. and the USSR was our Louis-Schmeling fight, a sporting event that took on major global implications. In retrospect, the game was nowhere near that important – the Soviet Union would crumble without our help soon afterward – and yet it turned out to be significant in a way that none of us could have imagined at the time.In actuality, that was our last pure Olympic moment, at least as it involved American athletes engaging in a major sport.(Of course, thanks to the continuing burlesque routine of Messrs. Bettman, Goodenow, et al, applying the tag “major” to the sport of ice hockey seems somewhat ludicrous these days.)Viewed from the distance and perspective of a quarter century, the Lake Placid Olympics seem quaint and unsophisticated. But what has become known as the Miracle on Ice stands virtually alone as one of the few positive events that prompts people to remember precisely where they were, who they were with, and what they were doing at the moment they learned about it.And why not? As sports legends go, it scarcely gets better than this.The team that beat the mighty Soviets was made up of 20 men, none older than 25. Eighteen of them were college students, and while a bunch of them (Ken Morrow, Dave Christian, and Mark Pavelich, among others) had NHL careers of varying distinction, there wasn’t a Gretzky or Lemieux in the bunch. The goalie, Craig, had a brief, undistinguished pro career, and the captain, Mike Eruzione, never played a minute in the NHL.The unquestioned star of the team was the head coach, Herb Brooks, who brought along a bunch of players from his University of Minnesota squad, threw in a few from Boston University, Wisconsin, and Duluth, and somehow shaped them into a scrappy, efficient hockey team. The team’s triumph was a coaching story as much as anything else, which today makes it all the more remarkable.Now, Olympic basketball and hockey are the property of highly paid professionals in search of the one item of bling their obscenely inflated paychecks can’t buy. Today, there could never be a Jim Craig or a Mike Eruzione on the U.S. Olympic hockey team – what NHL star would put up with the abuse of a college coach like Brooks, a sort of Bill Parcells on ice, these days? It is all big business now, and while the Games and their corporate sponsors are the richer for it, we as Americans and sports fans are infinitely poorer.Although it was impossible to know it at the time, what happened in the Olympic Field House during that magical February week in 1980 was the end of an era, our last glimpse at an Olympic tradition that no longer exists in America, and doubtful ever can again. Since then, Dream Teams have replaced amateur athletes, shoe companies have co-opted the Olympic Charter, and the famous five-ring logo of the Games has been increasingly replaced with a series of dollar signs.The romance has been purged from the Games, along with the inspiration and sheer joy of witnessing an impressive athletic feat become an astonishing one because of who is accomplishing it. Sorry, but Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and their buddies slapping around a bunch of Angolans doesn’t quite provide that, although you can bet that in 25 years, there will be Argentines asking one another, “Where were you the day we sent Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury home with a stinking bronze medal?”By turning the Olympics into a showcase for the three S’s – shoes, superstars, and steroids – we Americans have insured that the Games will never have the same charm or significance for future generations as the 1980 hockey team will always have for the previous one.It is something to think about this week, as officials of the International Olympic Committee are being wined, dined, and romanced by Mayor Bloomberg and his lieutenant, Dan Doctoroff, in an attempt to lure the 2012 Summer Olympics to New York City. What, exactly, do we think we are buying from the IOC? And what is the IOC really selling?If New York is looking to jump into the soulless financial juggernaut that the Olympics has become, that’s all well and good. We can get right in line along with Paris and London and Moscow in our attempt to outbid, out-flatter, and some would say, out-bribe the IOC.But if New York believes it is buying itself a shot at an unforgettable piece of sports history like the one that took place in Lake Placid in 1980, it can forget about it. That kind of thing was pulled off the market 25 years ago, and as far as anyone can see, it’s not coming back.Mr. Matthews is the host of the “Wally and the Keeg” sports talk show, heard Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on 1050 ESPN radio.

The Last Pure Olympic Moment

The Last Pure Olympic Moment

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