Miracle on Ice and in the Air
On the thirtieth anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, I thought it would be important to share a story about the effect of the game abroad from a family friend of ours. Our friend, who happens to be a Rangers fan (nobody’s perfect), can absolutely vouch that the following story is true. At the time, he was in the Navy and was attached to a naval carrier group that was located somewhere in the Gulf of Aden off the Coast of Yemen. (He’s well into his fifties now.) If his memory serves him well, he was aboard the USS Coral Sea at the time.
In 1980, the internet as we know it today, along with iPhones, email, etc., obviously did not even exist. Sailors aboard ships had no easy way to find out news from back home; information was passed on to the ship’s captain, who would then pass it down to the rest of the ship. Of course, this was a terribly slow way to deliver information, especially when compared to the immediacy of today. Naturally, such announcements about a hockey game were few and far between. Apparently the sailors aboard had some vague idea that the U.S. hockey team was playing the Soviets, but they had no idea as to the score or the winner. So when that unlikely group of college kids defeated the Soviets, the sailors aboard had no idea that the U.S. had just shocked the world.
As everyone well knows, the Miracle occurred at the height of the Cold War. And in places such as the Gulf of Aden, it was not uncommon for American and Soviet forces to come across each other in international waters. For instance, Soviet reconnaissance planes would sometimes come across a U.S. carrier group, as each had the right to travel in international waters. Just to make sure there were no misunderstandings (keep in mind that it wouldn’t have taken much for a Cold War to become hot), the U.S. carrier would scramble a jet to ‘escort’ the Soviet plane past our carriers. The two planes would apparently establish some sort of contact, one would escort the other past the carrier group, and each went on their way. This was simply done to make sure that no funny business broke out.
Sure enough, a day or two after the Miracle on Ice, a Soviet patrol was spotted near the U.S. carrier. Like many times before, an American jet was scrambled for escort purposes. Except that this time something extraordinary happened – when the American pilot contacted his Soviet counterpart, the Russian pilot responded by congratulating the Americans for their hockey team’s victory over the Soviets in the Olympics. When the American pilot landed, he passed on word to his countrymen that we had won and the ship erupted in cheer. And to think, how the ship found out that we had beaten the Soviets from – a Soviet fighter pilot!
The two mortal enemies, the proverbial ‘tips of the spears’, meeting eyeball to eyeball over international waters during the height of the Cold War, not long after the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan. And the Soviet pilot congratulated the Americans for their victory! Give credit to the Soviet pilot, obviously a hockey fan, for displaying a small measure of humanity, grace, and sportsmanship during what must have been a difficult time for the Soviets (as if it were ever easy or enjoyable). It’s amazing that the result of a simple hockey game may have thawed the ice between two mortal enemies, if only for a fleeting second.
So when you remember 1980, please keep this story in mind. The victory by the Americans at Lake Placid was no doubt a Miracle on Ice. But it inspired a much smaller miracle, far removed from the mountains of upstate New York. It inspired a ship full of Americans who were proudly serving their country. It demonstrated that, despite the intense hatred on both sides, our Soviet rivals weren’t all the monsters they were made out to be. And we have a plucky bunch of college kids, with a gruff head coach, to thank for it.