After an almost month-long sabbatical I am back. (And no I didn’t get suspended, because of gambling. As far as you know anyway.)
I had to take some time away from the game…er…writing. I had lost my love for it, but I hope you can find it in your heart to finally read me again. You will never see anybody write as hard as I will from now on. (Alright I think I hit every sports press conference cliché there is. I want to thank Jordan, Tiger, Tebow and every other famous sports figure that was forced to apologize and/or step down for a while.)
Now that football season is over and I can only look forward to the Pats trading down 348 times this coming draft and somehow screwing it up in the end. (If they don’t take a RB in the first three rounds I will freakin’ light my computer on fire and roll it down the hill. I might as well buy a new one right now. Sigh. But hey at least Manning is the Manning of old again when he morphed back into the choke artist we always knew and loved. Hallelujah!!! Life just got a little sweeter.)
Sometimes you have to pull a Tiger and have a little action on the side...err... I mean apologize to your fans and sponsors.
Now that my Celtics are trying to break the unofficial records for oldest NBA team ever and most late game leads squandered in a season.
Now that my Red Sox are desperately trying to become the most boring baseball team in recent history (no personality + no hitting = no excitment/fun/joy).
Now that I mentioned every depressing sports story that is effecting my life way too much it is time to focus on more delightful news.
That’s right I am going olympic hockey on you. After all the last time I did a hockey post … (sifting through my posts… sifting…sifting…more sifting… suddenly turning pale)
WHAT I NEVER DID A HOCKEY POST?!?!?
Why did nobody tell me!? I am deeply sorry Canada for not mentioning your number 1 sport. (Or 2, depending on the state of curling now that the Canadian women lost in dramatic fashion against the Sweds. Yes I watched it and yes and I just used dramatic and curling in the same sentence. Granted I fell asleep when I watched, but that was just because it was 3. a.m. and I was plastered out of mind. So there.)
But now let’s not lose any more time and cut right to the chase:
Today Canada and the U.S. will face off in one of the more anticipated hockey matches in recent history. Team USA is the clear underdog (even though they beat Canada a few days ago. Oh snap!!! That just happened!!! Who said that!? I probably just lost half of my Candian readership, but screw it: U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!), which of course invites a lot of comparison to USA 4- USSR 3.
Whenever I hear about the 1980 Miracle on Ice a particular feeling overcomes me.
Jealousy.
I am jealous of all Americans who were old enough to witness this greatest upset in sports history, just as I am jealous of all the people who were there for Jordan’s prime or all the Red Sox fans who had the fortune of living through the ’04 postseason.
But there is a huge difference between the first and the latter two examples. We will see another Jordan sometime (Heck, we might be witnessing one right now. Get it “witnessing” and LeBron? Glad I am here.) and we might even watch another team go through a 80 (maybe 80+) year drought and then win in spectacular fashion. (Every Cub fan just perplexedly looked up from their 1908 sports year book.)
But we will never ever ever see anything like USA 4- USSR 3.
Jealousy is the first thing The Average Fan thinks of when he watches the "Miracle on Ice"
Here is a little anecdote to illustrate my point (I feel like I am writing the SAT all over again. Some exciting stuff.):
The first and to date only time (although I will probably rent it today just to get into the right state of mind) I watched “Miracle” was, oddly enough, on an overnight flight from Germany to the states. I was probably about 13 or 14 years old and (as you probably could imagine) my eyes were glued to the little screen three rows in front of me. It was riveting. I had always been a fan of goose bumps sports movies, but this took it to another level. It was mesmerizing to watch. I remember thinking what a riveting story that was, but at no point did it occur to me that it could be based on a true story. Imagine the baffled look on my face when I found out afterwards that it was in fact based on a true story.
The point is that this upset actually happening seemed so unlikely and implausible to me that I was convinced all throughout the movie that it was just some made up Hollywood story. And I was not an unimginative kid by any means.
The Miracle on Ice was at the time and always will be (At least until the Tunisian curling team wins against Canada. That’s right to curling references in one post. Try and stop me.) the greatest upset ever. I mean it was college kids playing against the BEST team in the world that hadn’t lost an Olympic hockey game since 1968 and won 8 of the last 9 Olympic hockey gold medals including the last four. It was like some Little League team going up against the Steroid All-Stars (think McGwire, Bonds, Clemens and all the other 90′s stars coming fresh off another circle). Just unfathomable. Forget the sheer unlikeliness of the event itself, the fact that these unique circumstances will never be recreated should be reason enough to never see something the likes of the 1980 Miracle again. At the height of the Cold War you had the to superpowers of the world playing for more that just a medal. Now combine that with one of the greatest calls in sports broadcasting history (here for the long one and here for the one with the famous “do you believe in miracles” call, both give me goose bumps on my goose bumps every time) and you have a sports memory that I am truly jealous of because I know that it will never be replicated.
But of course there is always a silver lining. In this case it’s tonight’s game. Sure it is not by any means anything like the Miracle on Ice (after all I just wrote roughly 500 words to prove that), but if team USA can pull off an upset it might just be enough to liquidate at least some of my jealousy. With that said there is not much left to say besides:
U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!! U-S-A!!!