7
Great Teams Stay Young in Spirit and Outlook
You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old.
—GEORGE BURNS
On Sunday, February 14, 1980, our team took things to a new level when in our second game of the Olympics we beat Czechoslovakia, 7-3. Remember, we had come off an emotional final minute tie against Sweden on Friday. We were not expected to beat the Czechs—a team that many smart hockey people thought would take silver at Lake Placid and, maybe, even challenge the Soviets for gold. So, when we not only knocked off Czechoslovakia but actually soundly beat the team, we were not skating under the radar anymore. The U.S. was a very good hockey squad and we proved it.
Our third game was against Norway, a team that we were expected to beat—perhaps easily. Would we have a letdown, though, after the big win over the Czechs? We didn't play well early in the game. I let in a goal and we were losing 1-0 heading into the first intermission. We were playing stilted and nervous, in a sort of play-not-to-lose rather than play-to-win mode. We were sitting in the locker room and Herb had not come in yet. We were a bit down; we weren't getting the job done. Dave Silk tried to pump everybody up and he suggested that we all start saying positive things to, and be supportive of, one another. I remember what happened next—and Sports Illustrated actually reported it in a story. No one talked for a moment or two and my teammates kind of just looked at one another. Then came the chatter. ...
