Miracle on Ice

I finally got to watch a little bit of the Olympics this afternoon.  Until today, I hadn't been able to watch any of it at all because either a) I've been too busy, or b) my roommate had control of the TV in our apartment.  But today, I was able to watch most of the men's hockey quarterfinal between the USA and Switzerland.  (I didn't get to see the final ten minutes, though, because I had to go to work.)  I was glad that the USA won, and I'd really like to see us bring home the gold medal, but if we do win, even though we've got a pretty young team, it's never going to be as special of a moment as the 1980 Miracle on Ice was.  For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, the USA men's hockey team, who were major underdogs that year, won the gold medal, and along the way, they pulled off a stunning upset over the heavily favored team from the USSR, which had dominated the hockey scene for the last two decades (the story was retold in the 2004 movie Miracle starring Kurt Russell).  The way I see it, there's never going to be another moment in Olympic history that can top that one.  You want to know why?  It's because the Olympics teams in almost every sport today are heavily loaded with professional players.  Until recently, players in the NHL, NBA, and MLB were barred from playing in the Olympics, and personally, I think it should have stayed that way.  Most of the teams that win the medals these days consist almost entirely of professional players.  And since it's highly unlikely that the Olympics will go back to the way it was, no victory will ever be as sweet as that of the USA over the USSR in 1980.  Just think about it - a ragtag group of young amateur players rallying against all odds to defeat what was without a doubt the best team of its time - a victory not only on the ice, but also a victory for democracy, a victory for Truth, Justice, and the American Way.  There's no way you can ever top that.  The Miracle on Ice was named the Greatest Sports Moment of the 20th Century by Sports Illustrated, and unless the Olympics goes back to restricting team rosters to amateur players, it will forever remain the greatest sports moment of all time.

B-)