A Twenty-Eight-Year-Old Miracle

We're coming up on a anniversary. On February 22, it will have been twenty-eight years since "The Miracle On Ice". The significance of this event is primarily one of coincidence, but like most coincidences, it is sure to create a good measure of perspective.
1980 was an election year. A recession was looming, and the current president, Jimmy Carter, fought off all manner of negative press and dismal approval ratings. Iran had taken fifty-two American hostages and held them in our embassy there. The Soviet Union had only recently begun what would become a ten-year occupation of Afghanistan. Gas prices were rising fast and in some places people were paying more than a dollar per gallon. All of this tumult occurred as the United States prepared to host the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York.
With the looming suggestion of a United States boycott of the coming summer games in Moscow, the Soviets decided to go ahead and send their team to the U.S. to compete. Their hockey team was considered by most to be one of the greatest ever assembled. In an exhibition game thirteen days earlier, the Soviets had beaten the U.S. handily ten to three. That is why the U.S. team of amateurs and college players was never mentioned in any serious talk about winning any sort of medal. But they did. On February 22, 1980 they pulled off what amounts to the greatest upset in sports history. The U.S. still had to come back and beat Finland to secure the gold, but the world will always remember that night in Lake Placid for the incredible surge in national pride and the miracle that their hockey team brought to them. It truly was a miracle.
Fast forward to 2008, and imagine a comparable scenario. The U.S. has begun "allowing" its professional athletes to participate on its Olympic teams, and expectations for success are constantly tested by perceived "underdogs". The U.S. has troops in Afghanistan. Gas prices are even more ridiculous, and the looming recession became official when President Pinhead asked us all to accept his gift of cash money to go out and spend. Sadly, these were also his words of wisdom in the wake of September 11, when he urged us all to take a stand against the evil in the world by going shopping. In hindsight, he probably wishes he would have told us to take up hockey.