Free The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Books Online

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

Wayne Coffey

Hardcover | Pages: 288 pages

Rating: 4.23 | 2851 Users | 289 Reviews

Identify Books In Pursuance Of The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Original Title:	The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
ISBN:	140004765X (ISBN13: 9781400047659)
Edition Language:	English

Relation As Books The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!!!” Growing up watching any sporting event, Al Michaels’ call of the United States-Soviet Union hockey game from the 1980 Olympics takes its place front and center as one of the greatest underdog sports stories of the 20th century. I have no recollection of February 22, 1980 because the events of the Lake Placid Olympics took place when I was a mere four months old. Yet, being the sports fan that I am, it is impossible not to know about the original miracle on ice. Hockey is by far not my favorite team sport. As a kid, the Chicago Blackhawks were blacked out in local markets by the team’s ownership, so basketball easily became my winter sport of choice. Between watching the Bulls during their glory years and Michigan’s fab five team, hockey was an afterthought. My knowledge of the miracle on ice has been limited to the sound bite on sports broadcasts, and I had long thought to rectify that. With my baseball team eliminated from the post season this year, I decided to expand my hockey knowledge base.

Today, the Olympics is a star studded festival featuring the best athletes in the world. The original purpose of the modern Olympiad was to bring together athletes from around the world in a display of peace regardless of the world’s political climate, with winning and losing being secondary to the international unity shown at the events. Starting with the Berlin Olympics and the showdowns between American and German athletes, the goals of the Olympics began to change. Yes, new friendships could still be made in the Olympic village, but sports bringing glory to nations still ravaged by war took precedence to peaceful demonstrations of sports. Following World War II, eastern bloc nations culled the best athletes from the time they were children and had these athletes train in their given sport year round. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the Soviet Union, and athletes were amateurs in name only. The gulf between Olympic athletes from communist countries and their western counterparts widened with each passing Olympiad.

The year 1980 marked a low point in the United States. The country was still in the throes of the Iran hostage crisis, and the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. The Cold War threat remained a real danger in the eyes of the American public. Yet, the games would go on, and the 1980 Winter Olympics were set to be played in the quaint village of Lake Placid, New York. The Soviet Union with their professional amateurs had won every Olympic hockey tournament since 1960 and sought another victory on their political rival’s soil. The United States tabbed Herb Brooks to coach a team comprised of wide eyed twenty somethings, mainly college students, all amateurs. The days of dream teams and commercialization were still in the future. Brooks formulated his team of players from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New England. His team were not necessarily the best players in the United States, but they could skate fast, were gritty, and were built to withstand whatever the Soviets plotted for their head to head match up.

Wayne Coffey divides this book into three periods with two intermissions. The story jumps back and forth between the game and background stories of each of the twenty players on the team and their coaches. Mike Eruzione, the captain who shot the game winning goal, was nearly cut during training camp. Coach Brooks tabbed Eruzione as captain because he was the team’s elder statesman at age twenty five and displayed the grit of an Italian immigrant’s kid from Boston’s projects. Twenty five years after the game, the miracle on ice is still Eruzione’s shining moment. The other players all have their own compelling stories, parents who declined overtime at work to watch their sons play hockey, winter outdoor hockey at -50 degrees in Minnesota’s iron range, and mothers who shuttled their eight kids around to compete in youth hockey and other sporting tournaments. Each story was more compelling than the next, and nearly forty years later, it is obvious why Americans rooted for a team of kids who were given almost no chance to win.

Coffey claims that the miracle on ice is the 20th century’s biggest sports story. Seven of the players went on to have careers in professional hockey, yet, for many of the team’s players, the Miracle on Ice game was their crowning hockey achievement. They opened the door for Americans to be viewed as hockey stars, and today there are a number of United States born stars in the National Hockey League. At the time, the Olympics were a simpler affair. Players played for pride without the glitz and glory surrounding dream teams and professionals competing in most of the events. Even if the miracle of February 22, 1980 is not the single biggest sports story of the 20th century, Wayne Coffey’s take on the 1980 United States Olympic hockey team makes for one compelling story.

3.5 stars

Present Regarding Books The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Title	:	The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
Author	:	Wayne Coffey
Book Format	:	Hardcover
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 288 pages
Published	:	January 11th 2005 by Crown
Categories	:	Sports. Hockey. Nonfiction. History. Biography

Rating Regarding Books The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Ratings: 4.23 From 2851 Users | 289 Reviews

Judgment Regarding Books The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team

Do you believe in miracles? Yes!!! Growing up watching any sporting event, Al Michaels call of the United States-Soviet Union hockey game from the 1980 Olympics takes its place front and center as one of the greatest underdog sports stories of the 20th century. I have no recollection of February 22, 1980 because the events of the Lake Placid Olympics took place when I was a mere four months old. Yet, being the sports fan that I am, it is impossible not to know about the original miracle on ice.

"You watched them play and you were struck by the power of a simple, single thought: Hey, we really can still do it. In a profoundly pessimistic time, they brought hope...And the best part was they didn't even know they were doing it. They thought they were just trying to win hockey games."The Boys of Winter is the story of the United States Men's Hockey team that beat the Soviets in the winter of 1980, a David and Goliath victory which became a historic national moment during the Cold War.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?This quote perfectly captures the whole story of the 1980 Mens Olympic Hockey team, the definition of an underdog team. The USA had low goals in their own Olympics, basically just avoid being embarrassed on their home ice situated in the quaint little town of Lake Placid, New York. Under strict and manipulative coach Herb Brooks, the random college boys came together to win the gold medal against unbelievable odds. Even more impressive is the fact that to reach the

To paraphrase my friend Jeana the first (and only) time I made her watch miracle, Herb Brooks is a dick. Listen, I know his methods worked but that doesnt mean I have to like or agree with him.I read this book because I saw Erica reading it first, and her thoughts on the book are very similar to my own: that the author does a great job on expanding on the players personalities and their lives after the game, as well as focusing in on the underdog story, but also spends too much time describing

I like the outline of this book. Tell the story of a single game, and use different moments within it to tell the stories of the players on the team. And I'm a sucker for anything Cold War-related, because it all seems so clear cut and understandable, while still providing a mysterious, impenetrable character. That character is the Soviets. You know all about them, yet you know nothing about what they are really like. The backstories of all the U.S. players are interesting to various degrees.

Any American sports fan will know where he or she was on February 22, 1980. It was on that date that 20 young men from the United States defeated the hockey team from the Soviet Union in the Winter Olympics. It is considered by many, including this reviewer, as the greatest sports event that has occurred and will not be repeated. The stories behind this game and the players and Coach Herb Brooks are told in this book by Wayne Coffey. The book starts and ends with scenes from Brooks funeral after