Can The U.S. Steal Olympic Gold From The Russians?
The following article was published back in 1979, several months prior to 1980 Olympics

Written By Dan Stoneking in the hockey annual The Complete Handbook of Pro Hockey: 1980 Season

The questions, comrades, are simple enough.

What chance does the United States hockey team have against the Russians at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid?

What chance does any team from the puck playing planet have against Vladislav and Boris and Sergei and Mikhail and Helmut and Alexander and Valeri.

If guys like Denis Potvin and Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson and Mike Bossy and Ken Dryden and Bryan Trottier got worked over by the Russians in the three-game Challenge Cup last winter, what will happen when schoolboys and aspiring pros named Billy Baker and Ken Morrow and Steve Christoff and Ralph Cox and Jim Craig and Jack O'Callahan and Mark Johnson face the Soviets?

If Scotty Bowman, the winningest coach in National Hockey League history and the man who guided the Montreal Canadiens to five Stanley Cup titles in the last eight years, couldn't map out the strategies to beat the Russians, what chance does the University of Minnesota and U.S. Olympic coach Herb Brooks have?

How can the U.S. steal the Olympic gold? Will the Russians allow the Americans to mine the area in front of their goal? To string barbed wire across the blue line? To use tanks? Hand grenades? Flame throwers? And would any of those things stop them anyway?

Two decades ago when the Winter Olympics were staged at Squaw Valley the American six won the gold. Along the way they upset the Russians, a fact Jim McKay and the rest of the ABC-TV crew will no doubt repeat about 500 times in February.

But what about 20 years ago compared to now?

"There can be no comparisons between the Russian team that we played at Squaw Valley and the club the Soviets will send to Lake Placid," said Jack McCartan, the goaltender on the 1960 U.S. team. "it would be like comparing apples and oranges."

Perhaps a more appropriate analogy, Jack, would be amateurs to professionals?

The Soviets in 1960," assessed McCartan, "were merely great. Since then they have evolved into something between incredible and amazing. As far as the sport of hockey is concerned, the Russians have progressed more than 20 years in 20 years. They still play the same style. They still have the same philosophy of the game."

"The biggest difference is depth. They had a dozen great players then. Now they are so deep that they have great players who can't even make their Olympic team.

"The other major difference is the improvement they have made in goaltending. That once was a weakness. But Vladislav Tretiak is one of the best in the world. Maybe the best. And they have more waiting in the wings. Look at what the guy (Vladimir) Myshkin did in the third game of the Challenge Cup. He hadn't much international experience and here he comes into the rubber match with the NHL and shuts out some of the best goal scorers in the world."

It is remarkable. But then every time the Russians enter international hockey competition, something remarkable seems to happen.

CONTINUE