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1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics - the undisputed Winter games GOAT!
Posted on 2/4/26 at 12:07 pm
Posted on 2/4/26 at 12:07 pm
Maybe it's nostalgia but I still get goosebumps thinking about those games. US and USSR were in a bitter Cold War. Us vs. them. Eric Heiden does the impossible winning five gold medals in speed skating and is overshadowed by a bunch of college kids thrown together to beat the mighty Russian professionals in the greatest upset in sports history (Sorry Buster Douglas, Villanova, and NC State).
It was just a different time. A more serious time. A more patriotic time. The hockey game was tape delayed. 1980 was pre-cable TV for almost everybody....just three channels to watch. Andy Leopold, the sportscaster on channel 2 I think, ended his segment with "If you don't want to know the score of the US vs USSR hockey game because you're planning to watch it tonight, change the channel now". (or something like that....who in the world was going to change the channel with that setup line!!!)
I guess Tonya and Nancy was more dramatic in a National Enquirer kind of way, but nothing will top 1980. Any of you boomers or gen X folks have any Lake Placid stories?
It was just a different time. A more serious time. A more patriotic time. The hockey game was tape delayed. 1980 was pre-cable TV for almost everybody....just three channels to watch. Andy Leopold, the sportscaster on channel 2 I think, ended his segment with "If you don't want to know the score of the US vs USSR hockey game because you're planning to watch it tonight, change the channel now". (or something like that....who in the world was going to change the channel with that setup line!!!)
I guess Tonya and Nancy was more dramatic in a National Enquirer kind of way, but nothing will top 1980. Any of you boomers or gen X folks have any Lake Placid stories?
7
Posted on 2/4/26 at 12:30 pm to ATCTx
I was at a Pizza joint that had a live band with my parents one night during the '80 Olympics. The band stopped in the middle of a song and the owner came up to the mic and announced the final score of the US/USSR Hockey game. The place went nuts. It was amazing.
Posted on 2/4/26 at 2:48 pm to ATCTx
Zebra was playing a concert at Rummel, my sophomore year, when I found out the US beat the USSR.
Posted on 2/4/26 at 8:58 pm to Hangover Haven
Salt Lake was way way better. Coverage was better. Venues were better. US won ALOT more medals.
Posted on 2/5/26 at 12:03 pm to ATCTx
quote:
Eric Heiden does the impossible winning five gold medals in speed skating
Manimal
Went on to become an Orthopedic surgeon, I was 10 in ‘80, if you weren’t playing hockey in your parent's basement or driveway with a broom or wiffle ball bat and wiffle ball taped up with black electrical tape, I weep for you
Posted on 2/6/26 at 1:53 pm to ATCTx
Posted on 2/6/26 at 7:34 pm to ATCTx
All that nostalgia and today the U.S. has become more communist than Russia
Crazy times
Crazy times
Posted on 2/7/26 at 5:50 pm to ATCTx
I went to lake placid and went inside the arena where hockey games were played. It was like a high school gym. I still don't see how they could have an Olympics there.
Posted on 2/7/26 at 5:56 pm to texas tortilla
Al Michaels touches on this during the 40th Anniversary interview he had w Mike Tirico. Basically 1 or 2 ways in and out of the rural town. Limited to no accommodations for fans. Small arena, other venues etc.
God it sounds awesome
God it sounds awesome
Posted on 2/8/26 at 12:12 pm to Shreve Perry
quote:
Basically 1 or 2 ways in and out of the rural town. Limited to no accommodations for fans. Small arena, other venues etc….God it sounds awesome
There are Legends and then there is legendary. There’s a whole fraternity of our countrymen that lived through it in the Adirondacks 45 years ago, would make a hell of a rabbit hole.
quote:
They shut down schools for five weeks in the winter of 1980 so that town folks could volunteer. Lake Placid High School was made the media center. With the world’s elite media liking their wine and such, Lake Placid High remains the only high school ever in America to have a liquor license (a copy hangs in the current superintendent’s office today!).
Like you have to be resourceful with budget, so did they. They got government funding for the Olympic Village by saying it could be turned into a penitentiary right after the Games. This annoyed the Soviet athletes to no end, being in rooms 7 1’2 feet by 13 1/2 feet. Coach Herb Brooks brought in double wides for his team.
After their loss in the Miracle on Ice, clean up workers found numerous Soviet hockey silver medals in the trash in their rooms after the 1980 Games. John Gotti, years later, would spend time in this jail.
“The sheer volume of alcohol consumed during the 1980 Olympics is legendary.
Immense Consumption: The 1980 games were characterized by intense celebration, and anecdotal accounts suggest that local suppliers were stretched to their limits.
The Soviet Press: According to one account from a local bartender, the Soviet press, who were stunned by the loss, stayed in local cabins and consumed massive quantities of whiskey, specifically "getting obliterated on Jack Daniels" after being told they could only drink American drinks on the night of the Miracle game.”
Posted on 2/10/26 at 9:53 pm to ATCTx
I distinctly remember the Salt Lake City Olympics Opening Ceremony featuring Aaron Copland's "Hoedown". Unapologetically American, and they threw in the Dixie Chicks, one year before the short, fat one claimed to be embarrassed to be from the same state as GWB.
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