Do You Believe In Miracles?

When I first read the prompt for this week, I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I HATE conspiracy theories. To me, all conspiracy theorists are is a bunch of idiots propagating uneducated opinions and ideas, with just enough appeal to a vulnerable society to create a following similar to lemmings. But alas, I thought of one way to make this post interesting: by googling hockey conspiracy theories. And what do you know, there’s even a top 15. The most significant and interesting one to me though, questions the Miracle that occurred February 22, 1980. This wasn’t just another of my mother’s or George Washington’s birthdays, this was the day that Team USA beat the Soviets in the Olympics on our own soil. This was the greatest day of the Cold War Era. This was the greatest game in the the history of hockey. AND THEORISTS THINK THERE WAS A CONSPIRACY BEHIND THIS WIN?!?! Screw em. Even bleacher report analysts find it hard to believe that the Soviets would throw a gold medal in hockey just to appease President Carter and convince the US not to boycott the Moscow Olympics.

Reading this conspiracy theory set me off on a rampage to defend my nation and the integrity of the greatest game in the world: I needed to watch Miracle. I was very angry when I could not find the movie online for free, but I found an even better documentary featuring the actual members on both sides of the 1980 teams (part 1, part 2, and part 3) that won’t embed on this blog due to its settings but you should watch if you are at all interested in the actual history not spun by Disney. However, Kurt Russell gives us a pretty good idea of the situation at hand:

And attack they did. The US did not face the Soviets until the medal round when they needed a little extra inspiration to take on the best team in the world:

Yes, the Russians were a great hockey team. No argument there. But there is no doubt in my mind that the US college kids beat those “God damn Commies” fair and square and I’m pretty sure this is what Herb Brooks would have some choice words to say to any doubters (see 25 seconds in):