40 years ago today, on the small black and white TV my Grandparent's kept on their kitchen counter, I witnessed one of the greatest moments in sports history.
That stunning hockey game was tape delayed for the network broadcast that night, and so, oddly, already history by the time Americans cheered on their underdogs. A move like that would never work now, not with the speed of information being what is is, but in 1980 how were you going to know the result before it aired? Heck, more than ten years later I remember having to call the sports desk at the local paper to get a late boxing result.
A month shy of six years old, I was nowhere near aware of the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, the Iran hostage crisis, the post-Vietnam fugue, Carter's stagflation, or any of the other geo-political events that made that match so much more than just an athletic contest.
But I knew I loved my country and I knew this was important. I could feel the electricity in the crowd right through the TV, a buzz shared by the announcers and my family.
It was a great day to be an American, whether you were six or sixty.
A Miracle on Ice indeed.
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