1980 US Olympic hockey team reunites in Lake Placid

I was there for THE game! What an amazing thing to witness. For the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics we parked our car in Keene Valley and were bused to Lake Placid. Even as late as being on the bus we did not know who we were going to see play. We only knew we had tickets for a hockey semi-final, teams to be announced. We knew of course that the USA team was a semi-finalist, but who they would play and when was at the moment unknown to us.

While walking around Lake Placid we heard that the USA team would be playing in the game we were headed to! Wow, that was incredible, and to think they would be playing the USSR was just too hard to believe. Most agreed that these were the two best teams in the world!

I was an IBM salesman at the time and had just started working out of the Burlington, VT sales office. We had not yet moved from Hampstead, NH to Jericho, VT, but would close on our new house in a week or so. As an IBM representative I was able to get my hands on two very expensive and good seats at $72 each, as I recall. Back then these were expensive tickets! I invited a very good IBM customer to attend the game with me. Let's see, I was then 38, and I am guessing my customer was about the same. The difference between us, hockeywise, was night and day: he still played competitive hockey, had his whole life,and knew the game, the players, and the coaches very well.

We wound up sitting about 8 rows up from the ice in the mid-rink area. The row in front of us, their heads right at our knees as we sat there, was filled with NHL head coaches, so my customer, knowing them all, was in 7th heaven!

Needless to say, he became one of my best customers while we lived in VT!

Now, I want you to know that somewhere in this new Acton, MA house of ours I have the program and my ticket stub from the game. My plan was to snap a photo of the stub and post it here. I just spent an hour or so looking for it, but so far have come up empty-handed. I shall deliver on that some day so keep looking here.

The U.S. players celebrate their victory over the Soviet Union.

 1980 US Olympic hockey team reunites in Lake Placid

"LAKE PLACID, N.Y. –  The ovation wasn't quite as deafening as it was 35 years ago. It was riveting, nonetheless, for Dave Christian and his old Olympic buddies, together again to celebrate their Miracle on Ice.

"It feels exactly the same," Christian said Saturday night as the members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team returned to the rink they made famous with their triumph over the Soviet Union. "You could feel the electricity in the (locker) room. It's still there."

The "Relive the Miracle" reunion at Herb Brooks Arena attracted more than 5,000 fans for a two-hour celebration of one of the most memorable upsets in sports history. Every surviving player from the team made the trip, including Mark Pavelich, who drove from his Oregon home with two dogs. It was the first time the team had all been together since that memorable night.

Missing was Brooks, the Hall of Fame coach who was killed in a car accident in 2003, and rugged defenseman Bob Suter, who died at age 57 in September.

"Herb had a feel for the game during the game," goalie Jim Craig said. "He would get you off the ice before you could commit a penalty. He was ahead of his time in many ways.""

Read more here