{"id":547115,"date":"2026-04-08T09:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/547115\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T09:38:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:38:24","slug":"the-miracle-on-ice-u-s-hockey-team-felt-pressure-just-not-when-you-might-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/547115\/","title":{"rendered":"The Miracle on Ice U.S. hockey team felt pressure. Just not when you might think"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of our Asking Under Pressure series<\/a>, which looks at how duos performed together in a highly competitive situation. <\/p>\n

The Miracle on Ice U.S. men\u2019s hockey team carried a shared, unrelenting pressure for months, and experienced it in different ways.<\/p>\n

Under head coach Herb Brooks, players were pushed to their limits in practice, enduring the most grueling conditioning of their lives. They arrived as underdogs at the 1980 Olympics, and with each upset win, expectations grew.<\/p>\n

The strain forged something essential: trust. By the time they reached their most famous moment in Lake Placid, the semifinal against the heavily favored Soviet Union, the players had learned not just how to endure pressure but how to depend on one another within it.<\/p>\n

The upset sent the U.S. to the gold medal game two days later against Finland. Late into the second period of that game, the Americans trailed.<\/p>\n

Yet, in what should have been the most overwhelming moment of their athletic lives, they were once again composed and in sync, ultimately winning the game and the gold.<\/p>\n

In the decades since, interest in the Miracle on Ice team has remained, but it picked up again in a big way this year, both with a new Netflix documentary and after the U.S. men\u2019s hockey team won gold for the first time since 1980.<\/p>\n

I spoke with two key players from the 1980 team, Mike Eruzione, the captain and emotional leader, and Ken Morrow, a calm and steady defenseman who went on to win four Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders. Their roles and personalities couldn\u2019t have been more different years ago in Lake Placid, but they combined their skills and came together to help secure the gold medal.<\/p>\n

To them, the formula to handle pressure is all very simple.<\/p>\n

First, can you both walk me through the last 10 minutes of the Soviet Union game? Mike, you scored, and then you\u2019re all trying to hold on to that lead in those last couple of minutes. What was that like?<\/p>\n

Eruzione: Well, I\u2019ll go first. I hate to answer it this way, but I didn\u2019t feel any pressure. I just wanted to keep playing and doing the things that we were already doing. You can\u2019t all of a sudden change what you\u2019re doing. One of the great things about Herb as a coach is we were playing in these important games and in important moments, and he\u2019s just on the bench, constantly saying, \u201cPlay your game, play your game.\u201d And my mind at that time said, \u201cYeah, let them worry about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morrow: I looked up at the clock, and there was exactly 10 minutes to go, and I\u2019m thinking to myself, \u201cThis is going to be the longest 10 minutes of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But going into it, I don\u2019t think we felt much pressure at all, truthfully, because the expectations were that we were going to get blown out, you know?<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re the underdog, you can play a looser style of hockey. To me, the pressure really came for our team later against Finland. That\u2019s where the pressure built up.<\/p>\n

Eruzione: You play so hard, you play so well \u2014 now, the last 20 minutes of the game against Finland, we\u2019re down a goal. But then the best 20 minutes of hockey we played all year were those final 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

Morrow: I\u2019ve said it for 45 years: The proudest moment for me with our team from those two weeks in Lake Placid was the third period of the Finland game, and it was because we were down a goal. That\u2019s where the pressure was on, and we played by far our best period.<\/p>\n

What made the difference in those moments? Mike, like you said, if you didn\u2019t necessarily feel all the pressure, why do you think that is? How did you get to that point? <\/p>\n

Eruzione: I just think it was the confidence we had in all our abilities. One of the things you have to have is trust. If you trust your teammates, if you trust your coach, that takes a lot of pressure off you.<\/p>\n

Because if everybody\u2019s doing what they\u2019re supposed to do, and you trust them to do that, it kind of eliminates any pressure.<\/p>\n

Morrow: That whole year, we were under pressure. Whether it was from the way Herb was coaching, threatening to cut guys, to playing for five months, all just to lead up to those first two games that if we don\u2019t win, we don\u2019t make the medal round and our Olympics are done.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re put in those kinds of pressure situations, it helps you when you do actually get into a game against Russia and a game against Finland. You\u2019ve been there.<\/p>\n

What do you think you learned in those first few games that ended up translating later on in the Finland game and the Soviet Union game? <\/p>\n

Morrow: I know guys talk about it a lot, but you don\u2019t want to let the guys next to you down, whether it\u2019s in the locker room or on the bench. And that\u2019s what should drive you as a player.<\/p>\n

You have a bond and you\u2019re all working together, but there are still different personalities, and people handle things differently, especially pressure. Did each of you deal with these big games differently?<\/p>\n

Morrow: I think you really need to have a team of different personalities. You can\u2019t have 20 of the same type of guys. You can\u2019t have 20 workers; you can\u2019t have 20 highly skilled guys. I think Herb knew that. You have to have different personalities.<\/p>\n

Eruzione: And understand what your role is. Kenny\u2019s role was to steady the defensive corps by the way he played. My role might have been an emotional role or to be the vocal guy in a locker room. So I think everybody, when the puzzle was finally finished, everybody had a little piece of it. And when you see that and everybody is doing what their role is, it does, in a crazy way, get the pressure off of you.<\/p>\n

Morrow: I\u2019ve always tried to break leadership down into two really simple terms. For me, there are two types of leaders in those moments.<\/p>\n

There are guys that go out and lead by example. They may not be the vocal guys, but they\u2019re the guys that, when they step on the ice, they lead by the way they play, how hard they play. And then you have the guys who are the vocal guys that will stand up. Those are the two types of leaders, and we had that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny because I think you\u2019re one of each. Ken, you\u2019re the one type, and Mike, you\u2019re the other, right?<\/p>\n

Morrow: Absolutely. Yeah, I was very quiet. And Mike would stand up and obviously was a great captain for our team.<\/p>\n

Eruzione: I remember when Kenny scored the goal in the Stanley Cup playoff run to win the game, and all he did was raise his stick and turned around and just went off the ice. I\u2019d have been jumping up and down!<\/p>\n

Morrow: Mike, I like how in the documentary, when you watched your celebration after you scored the goal, you were like, \u201cHmm, I don\u2019t know where that came from. I never did that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, as Mike said, I was a guy that just stood in the background, and I just wanted to be playing my game, and Herb knew that, so he left me alone. He knew he couldn\u2019t ride me as hard as he rode other guys because I wouldn\u2019t respond to that.<\/p>\n

Eruzione: Herb knew whose buttons to push in those moments. You yell at me, I get mad and I\u2019ll work harder. You can yell at Phil Verchota. You can yell at Buzzy (Buzz Schneider). You can yell at Jack O\u2019Callahan. You\u2019re not going to yell at Mark Johnson. You\u2019re not going to yell at Kenny. So then, by screaming at certain players, that really sent the message to the team.<\/p>\n

Mike, you said you\u2019d look over at Ken in the big moments and say, \u201cWell, he\u2019s our steady guy. He\u2019s going to be able to handle it.\u201d I think it also goes to show you, too, that when someone\u2019s working really hard alongside you for months, when it comes down to it, of course you\u2019re going to trust them, because you\u2019ve seen how much they\u2019ve given and all the work they put in up close. <\/p>\n

Eruzione: I think sometimes people overthink leadership. They overthink what it takes for a team to be leaders. Don\u2019t complicate it. Being a leader is being a good teammate, being a good friend, being a good person.<\/p>\n

If you have that, you have teammates that really respect each other and trust each other \u2014 now you have a team of leaders. And then, without even thinking about it, now you\u2019re not feeling any pressure because look who\u2019s in that room. Look at the guys that you\u2019re playing with.<\/p>\n

That eliminates the pressure. You have players in that room that support you and want to be with you and want to help you. That eliminates pressure.<\/p>\n

Morrow: Well said, Mike.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most important thing that you guys took away from playing together in these big moments at the Olympics?<\/p>\n

Eruzione: It\u2019s really just those silly little things, like a team bus trip or hotel room or something like that.<\/p>\n

Well, now, I\u2019d argue those silly little things aren\u2019t so silly and little because that\u2019s what bonds you together and gives you that trust that you need in the big moments, like you said. <\/p>\n

Morrow: That\u2019s a good point, Elise.<\/p>\n

Eruzione: I remember flying home after we won the gold medal. We were on the plane going from Washington to Boston, and me, Silky (Dave Silk) and Jack O\u2019Callahan were on the plane going home. I looked at Dave, and he kind of had these tears in his eyes, and I said, \u201cSilky, what\u2019s wrong?\u201d He looked at me and said, \u201cIt\u2019s over. We will never play together again.\u201d And I was like, \u201cOh my God, you\u2019re right.\u201d It hits you that you don\u2019t often get to have that bond and love and friendship like we had.<\/p>\n

Morrow: The other thing is conditioning. I played 10 years in the NHL, and I was never, ever in better condition than I was with Herb\u2019s team. Just the fact that he was able to push me and everybody else beyond what you ever thought you could do.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s almost the method to that madness, right? That kind of ridiculously challenging conditioning, I\u2019m sure, showed you what you were capable of.<\/p>\n

Eruzione: Yes. And we just dig too deep into pressure. I think you can handle pressure by being surrounded by great players, great people and hard workers. That is what takes pressure off.<\/p>\n

Morrow: Exactly.<\/p>\n

The Asking Under Pressure series is part of a partnership with PGIM. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is part of our Asking Under Pressure series, which looks at how duos performed together in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,54125,159,4,2602,717,273,54279],"class_list":{"0":"post-547115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","10":"tag-new-york-islanders","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-olympics","13":"tag-peak","14":"tag-sports-business","15":"tag-womens-olympic-ice-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116368422205943159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}