1980 US Olympic hockey team

[groovlstk]

I just watched the movie "Miracle" with some friends, it was quite good and bought back some memories of life in the US at that time.

My ex-GF from the Ukraine told me that her father was royally pissed when he found out that the Soviet team lost to a bunch of college kids at Lake Placid.

About 10 years ago, I had the pleasure of skating with Slava Fetisov, a legendary Russian defenseman who was the first Soviet player to join the NHL with his country's blessing. He was playing for the NJ Devils, and my friends and I skate year-round at their practice rink, and he and a few other Devils players would skate with us during the Summer to keep their legs fresh. I had a few conversations with him but I never asked him about that game... but I wish I had

[KenC]

I was in Detroit when the Red Wings had Fetsiov, Fedorov, Larionov, Koslov and Konstantinov.  They called them the "Russian Five".  Of course Anna Kornikova was always in town too.  She spent most of one summer "below deck" of Fedorov's boat (across from my buddy's boat).  My wife was in Detroit for only a week and she ran into Festiov's beautiful wife and children at the grocery store and Anna Kornikova at the mall.

KenC

[wxman]

I was going to college in Milwaukee during time of 1980 Olympics when I saw the Soviet team play the USA team 2 weeks prior to Olympics. The Soviet team won 10-3. I think they thought playing the US team in the Olympics was going to be easy.

[groovlstk]

I read somewhere that after the Olympics, the cleaning crew found over 100 empty vodka bottles hidden behind ceiling tiles in the Soviet dorms in Lake Placid.

Although I don't think the US win was entirely a fluke--there were a convergence of elements that helped determine the outcome--the Soviet team was clearlys superior, probably the best hockey team ever assembled.

Funny enough, the two men who played on the NJ Devils, Slava Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov, were at one time best friends. They'd been paired on defense for the Red Army team for more than a decade, but somewhere before they came to the US they'd had a falling out. The other Devs players used to get angry because whenever they went out to dinner, etc., Fetisov and Kasatonov refused to be near each other so they always had to separate into two groups.