re: 1980 USA Hockey vs. 2014 USA Hockey -- Olympics

Herb Brooks gets tons of credit for 1980. Always has, even as he tried to deflect it to the players.

From a hockey standpoint, a 2014 gold is more significant. Every team is better and full of great players. The field is absolutely loaded - it's like have 6 or 7 dream teams out there.

Culturally? Not even the same ballpark. The Miracle On Ice is one of the biggest shared cultural sports touchstones of American culture.
It is arguably the most significant sporting event in US history, culturally speaking. You'll never have that again. Too many stars were aligned as the game took on increased socio-political importance.

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Who is your friend that played on that team ? eta: isn't virtually that whole team basically pushing their 60s now ?

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Posted by COTiger on 2/16 at 11:43 am to RedMustang Great story. Do you mind divulging your buddy's name? Understand if you don't. I saw some of the tryouts in 1979. You are right. Herbie was working their asses off in the tryouts.

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Sorry, I just saw your posts. He is Mike Ramsey, a defenseman on that team. He's a great guy, very down to earth. I played a lot of softball with him as he'd play in the off season. He played hockey for the Sabres back then, but would come back to Minnesota for the summers. He's 53 years old.
He once told me he had some of his equipment from the Olympics, pads, gloves, etc. sitting in the garage. They had a rummage sale and he put the stuff up for sale for a few bucks. Someone got a nice piece of history very cheap!