Saturday, February 22, 2025
When we beat the guys wearing the CCCP jerseys
It gave us the lift that we all needed back then! Again, what a game and how timely that it happened on George Washington's birthday.
— Silvio Canto. Jr. (@silvio_canto) February 22, 2025
When we beat the guys wearing the CCCP jerseys - American Thinker https://t.co/f8Kva5ZTUa
We celebrate today another anniversary of George Washington’s birthday in 1732. We used to celebrate his birthday as a special day. It reminded everyone of the greatness of the man.
Back in 1980, many of us spent President Washington’s birthday watching an Olympic hockey game. It passed into the history pages as the “Miracle on Ice.” It was sort of like the recent U.S.-Canada game without the fights but a million times more tense.
As you may remember, we were in the middle of various crises, abroad and at home.
First, the USSR had just invaded Afghanistan and was throwing its weight around in Nicaragua and paying for Cuban troops in Africa. Second, Iran had kidnapped U.S. diplomats and mocked President Carter every day. It seemed as if no one feared the U.S. and the bad guys certainly didn’t. Third, the U.S. economy was struggling, from long gas lines to inflation. I remember all of this because I sat waiting in one of those gas lines.
In the middle of all of this, a bunch of young Americans gave us the time of our lives. It was the first hockey game that I ever paid attention to!
The U.S. beat the old USSR in the Olympic semifinals to move on to the gold game. What a great game. In fact, listening to Al Michaels of ABC call the last minute of that game was unbelievable.
Here is the story of that day:
The story first needs a Goliath, and even the most cursory look at the Soviets shows their might. They had won each of the previous four Olympic gold medals in hockey and 12 gold medals in the 16 world championships they played in between 1961 and 1979.
The USSR also won all 12 matchups with the United States between the 1960 and 1980 Olympics, outscoring the Americans 117-26…
The idea of competing with the Soviets was absurd on paper. But the victory becomes even more miraculous when you see how badly the U.S. was outchanced that day by the older, more experienced Soviets…The most basic metric is total shot attempts — the total number of shots a team takes, whether they hit or miss the net or are blocked by the opposition, commonly known in the hockey stats community as Corsi — specifically those taken when both teams are skating five players a side. It is commonly presented to show possession tendencies. Consider:
In all situations, the USSR had 52 shot attempts, while the U.S. recorded just 25 (67.5% of the total attempts).
When taking that same statistic and looking at only 5-on-5 situations, the USSR held a 46-21 shot attempt advantage (68.7% shot share).
When looking at shots that hit their target, the official box score credited the USSR with 39 total shots on goal, and we determined it had 31 at 5-on-5. The United States? Try 16, and just seven at 5-on-5. We actually classified six of those 16 American shots as dump-ins on goal, too, meaning there were really 10 true shots from Team USA. A ridiculous 71% of shots on goal in the game came from the Soviets, and that number jumped to 81.6% at 5-on-5.
Running a possession deficit that substantial is not usually going to lead to success, and it’s somewhat rare to see. Over the past three NHL postseasons, only five playoff games out of 258 have had a possession disparity as large or larger than what we saw in the Miracle on Ice.
Yes, “Running a possession deficit that substantial is not usually going to lead to success” except when you are playing on Washington’s birthday. Maybe George persuaded the Gods of hockey that the country really needed this one. I don’t know how it happened but the good guys won that day and people like me began to take hockey seriously. All of a sudden, the Stanley Cup was a sports final rather than a gift for newlyweds.
It gave us the lift that we all needed back then! Again, what a game and how timely that it happened on George Washington’s birthday.
P.S. Check out my blog for posts, podcasts and videos.
A word about Sparky Anderson (1934-2010)
The great Sparky Anderson died in 2010. He was born on this day in 1934 and inducted to The Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000.
Sparky managed the Big Red Machine in the 1970's and then Detroit until the mid-90's.
Anderson led Cincinnati to 4 NL pennants and World Series victories in 1975 & 1976. Later, he led the Tigers to a series win in 1984 & AL East title in 1987. Overall, Anderson was one of the most successful managers ever: .545 winning pct!
After baseball, he became a wonderful baseball analyst in post season baseball working radio and TV. I specifically remember his radio work in the 1983 World Series.
1980 Winter Games & the most enjoyable hockey game ever!
“In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeats the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The Soviet squad, previously regarded as the finest in the world, fell to the youthful American team 4-3 before a frenzied crowd of 10,000 spectators. Two days later, the Americans defeated Finland 4-2 to clinch the hockey gold.”
Remembering what my late great-uncle used to say about George Washington
George Washington was born on February 22 in 1732.
No one is indispensable but Washington came pretty close, as Scott Johnson reminds us very year. With all due respect to Scott Johnson, a real favorite of mine, but that post reminds me of my late great uncle every time that I read it. I feel that he could have written it!
My late great-uncle, or Tio Joaquin as we called him, was one of those men who got to live a lot of the history that we've read.
He was born in the 1890s or when Cuban was still a Spanish colony. The US and Spain got into a war in 1898 and Cuba finally achieved its independence in 1902. Unlike most of Latin America that became independent in the first 30 years of the 19th century, Cuba remained the last Spanish outpost in the New World until the end of the century.
He remembers the day that Cuba became an independent country. He lived through the Great Depression or when the price of sugar collapsed in the 1930s. He saw the Machado dictatorship that followed the economic turmoil, the Batista uprising, the establishment of a republic in 1940 and communist takeover of 1959.
He saw it all and died in Cuba in the 1980s. He chose not to leave because he didn't want to be a burden to his nephews (my father and two uncles) starting a new life in the US. He used to say that the communist were not going to convert old folks like him and Aunt Clara.
He was a huge fan of US history, specially Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.
He told me something that I will never forget. Let me paraphrase it for you:
"The US was very lucky to have a man of Washington's character at every turn of the young nation's history. He earned the respect of the rebels with his integrity. He was the man trusted by those colonists embarking on a constitutional experiment. And he knew when to leave when his two terms were up. Did you ever hear of a man walk away from a position of power? He could have been president for life but he left."
It was a history lesson that I did not quite understand as a kid in Cuba.
I understand it today as we celebrate the man's life on his birthday.
What a way to celebrate George Washington’s birthday in 1980
“In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeats the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The Soviet squad, previously regarded as the finest in the world, fell to the youthful American team 4-3 before a frenzied crowd of 10,000 spectators. Two days later, the Americans defeated Finland 4-2 to clinch the hockey gold.”
February 22, 1980: US 4, USSR 3
“In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeats the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The Soviet squad, previously regarded as the finest in the world, fell to the youthful American team 4-3 before a frenzied crowd of 10,000 spectators. Two days later, the Americans defeated Finland 4-2 to clinch the hockey gold.”
The Battle of Gettysburg 1863 with Barry Jacobsen
