Books on the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Surprisingly there is a dearth of books on the history of the 1980 Miracle On Ice Hockey Team. While there is no shortage of movies and documentaries on the historic events at Lake Placid, books specifically focused on the tournament and the team are in short supply.

There is more to understand about the team than through the books sctricly focused on 1980. There are biographies of Herb Brooks, the head coach and mastermind of the team. Behind the scenes, Lou Vairo was instrumental to the teams success, and of course Kenny Morrow’s historic career is catapulted with his selection for the team and performance in the Olympics.

The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Wayne Coffey

Best Quote: “Mac was the kind of guy who would go 110 percent brushing his teeth in the morning.”

Summary: Coffey’s book takes a deep dive into each player on the roster, describing their back story and what made their contributions to the team unique. Coffey does this as he walks the reader through the game minute by minute, period by period. In this sense each time there is a critical play, a save, or a goal, the author has described the players personal history, and what led them to that moment in the game. Coffey also tells the story of some key Soviet players, and treats Valeri Kharlamov, Vladislav Tretiak, and Slava Fetisov with immense respect, which further highlights the accomplishment of the U.S. team.

The Making of a Miracle: The Untold Story of the Captain of the 1980 Gold Medal–Winning U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Mike Eruzione

Best Quote: “We didn't play a prevent defense once we got ahead of the Russians. Most teams did that, and the Russians just crushed them. We kept skating. We won because our conditioning was completely off the charts."

Summary: Part story of the 1980 Miracle on Ice, part autobiography of team captain Mike Eruzione. The book begins by offering insight to Eruzione’s upbringing in Winthrop Massachusetts, which he credits for his blue-collar work ethic. It was this work-ethic, and the desire to out hustle and out work everyone that would become paramount in guiding the 1980 U.S. Olympic Men’s Hockey team to their victory over the Soviets, and their eventual gold medal. Indeed, by presenting his upbringing first, the author can tell a better story about his relationship with Herb Brooks, and help to explain why Eruzione was chosen as team captain. This relationship lays the foundation for for insights into Herb Brook’s coaching style and the decisions he made to build and train the team. Throughout the book, Eruzione highlights the achievements of his teammates, further solidifying the whole team concept, where no one individual player was placed above another.

Miracle in Lake Placid: The Greatest Hockey Story Ever Told by John Gilbert

Best Quote: “Anything in sports could be done better the next year — but not this. The best Europeans are now playing in the NHL, so you can't get the genie back into the bottle. You can't put amateurs back on the ice. This was once in a lifetime."

Summary: Published at the 40th anniversary of the Miracle On Ice, the author uses his historical notes from the time he was a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune to help explain how the U.S. team succeeded, and how the game changed American sports culture. Indeed, Gilbert is able to use his reporting notes to provide an inside view into the team’s dynamics, and the strategy Herb Brooks employed while leading the team to a gold medal. The book follows some of the key personalities within the team such as the Captain, Mike Eruzione, Jim Craig, Mark Johnson, Buzz Schneider, and Jack O'Callahan. Further, the author follows these players to explore how the game shaped their lives over the decades that followed.

Going for the Gold: How the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Won at Lake Placid by Tim Wendel

Best Quote: "The victory wasn't just about hockey; it was about belief.”

Summary: Originally published in 1980, this book was one of the earliest full-length accounts of the Miracle on Ice. The author embedded with the team for nearly a year leading up to the gold medal run, as he accompanied the team on their long and arduous exhibition games throughout North America and Europe. What makes this book stand out is that as a book published in the immediate aftermath of the Olympics, the raw emotions are still in the writing, opposed to books that offer multiple decades worth of retrospective. The players and coaches come off as more human than the legendary figures they would transform into. The book includes dozens of black and while photographs that capture some raw moments in the locker rooms and in the games.

Miracle on Ice by Red Smith

Best Quote: "If you said before the game that the United States would defeat the Soviet team, they would have put you away in a rubber room.” …”Scoreboards don't lie, though they can leave you rubbing your eyes.”

Summary: A short book (~90 pages) published mere weeks after the Americans upset the Soviets and captured Olympic gold. Red Smith was one of the nation’s best sports writers in the 20th Century, and as such he leveraged the columns he wrote during the game to capture the feelings and emotions in the moment. Like Tim Wendel’s book, Red Smith’s work does not offer a retrospective, but rather provide the reader with essential play-by-play context.