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Remembering Team USA's incredible 'Miracle On Ice' in 1980

Among all of the United States’ incredible moments in the Olympic Games are a few that standout as especially triumphant, including the USA hockey team’s defeat of the Soviet Union at the height of the second Cold War. Let’s take a look back at one of the great underdog victories in sports history.

Though at the time this was merely a hard check, the visual of team USA’s youngest player, Mike Ramsey, upending Valeri Kharlamov now serves as a kind of effigy for Team USA’s historic upset. Heading into the game, Kharlamov had won eight World Championship gold medals and two Olympic gold medals with the Soviet hockey team.

Coach Brooks was visibly emotional at the April press conference in 1980 in which he announced he would step down as the coach of the University of Minnesota. He went on to have a long career as a coach in the NHL before eventually returning to the national stage to coach Team USA for the 2002 Salt Lake City games.