The Megyn Kelly Show - Patriotism, Perseverance, and Beating the Russians, with ＂Miracle on Ice＂ Team Captain Mike Eruzione

00:00:00.460 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.700 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. I am so excited for today's

00:00:17.580 conversation. Our guest today is somebody I've wanted to meet forever, and you probably do too.

00:00:23.600 He's an American icon, a hero, Mike Aruzzioni. Mike was captain of the, the 1980 Team USA hockey team

00:00:33.200 that beat the Soviets in what is commonly referred to as the Miracle on Ice. Mike's life is fascinating,

00:00:41.060 and there's a lot for all of us to learn from the way he grew up, scrappy, outside of Boston in a home,

00:00:47.120 working class family with his entire extended family all around him. Unlike the kids of today

00:00:52.200 who are forced into one sport early on and coached and trained and, you know, geared to be

00:00:57.560 Olympic athletes from the time they're two, he grew up like a lot of us did, playing a bunch of

00:01:02.740 different sports, learning from a bunch of different coaches, lessons of life and sportsmanship and hard

00:01:08.240 work. And one of those sports was indeed hockey. But he wasn't the best. He wasn't the fastest. He

00:01:14.700 wasn't the greatest. And he didn't know what was going to happen with his hockey future. Then one day,

00:01:21.720 a chance encounter led him to his future in Division One hockey, something that was not

00:01:26.760 secure for him prior to that moment. And eventually it's Team USA. The incredible story of how 20 men

00:01:33.260 on Team USA managed to pull off one of the biggest upsets might have been the biggest in sports history

00:01:38.800 is inspiring to say the least. Millions of Americans have been touched by this story, including current

00:01:46.260 day, who continue to go back even if they weren't alive back in 1980 and watch, for example, the 2004

00:01:52.960 box office hit film Miracle, like we did recently, because we want our kids to know the story and know

00:01:59.420 it as well as we do. It's a story of perseverance and of patriotism, something we could use more of

00:02:06.320 in today's day and age.

00:02:12.300 Micah Ruzzioni, welcome to the show.

00:02:14.720 Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for all those kind words.

00:02:18.100 Of course. Of course. I'm so excited for our conversation and going back and learning more

00:02:22.380 about you from your book, which came out on the I guess it was the 40th anniversary, right?

00:02:28.380 It was 2020. I learned even more.

00:02:31.080 Yeah, it was it was interesting. It was exciting. It was fun to do. You know,

00:02:34.120 I never thought in my life I'd ever write a book. And with my friend, Neil Beaudet, we, you know,

00:02:38.540 we put something together. And, you know, I wrote the book for one reason and one reason only.

00:02:43.120 And I told Harper Collins, I don't care if anybody buys the book, which they didn't like to hear from

00:02:47.880 me. But I want my grandkids to know that Papa's life wasn't one game, one goal, one moment.

00:02:53.720 I wanted my grandkids to know about their great grandmother and great grandfather. I want them to

00:02:57.820 know how important our family is and our friendship, how important friends are. I want them to know

00:03:03.700 how I grew up, the life I lived and the life I I had, you know, as a kid. So that's that's the

00:03:10.180 basis of the book and why I wrote it. Obviously, you know, some stories about the Olympics. But

00:03:14.780 yeah, the whole reason was was, again, you know, how I grew up and what I was like as a as a young

00:03:20.940 boy. It's called The Making of a Miracle came out in January 2020. I've made my kids watch the movie.

00:03:28.360 And I love the documentary, too, that I know you consulted on that came years before,

00:03:32.260 because I want them to understand what I understand as somebody who's a little younger

00:03:36.780 than you are. But, you know, I was around in 1980. I was born in 70, which is there used

00:03:41.180 to be this America that despite the tough times, the down times, political partisanship,

00:03:47.040 we would find our way back to each other. And we we rarely spent long periods not in love

00:03:54.020 with our country. You know, somehow we'd always find a way back to loving our country and being

00:03:58.400 proud to be Americans. And it's been too long of a stretch, in my view, that we haven't since we

00:04:06.620 felt that. And, you know, the last time I remember was post 9-11. And now here we are 2022. And that's

00:04:12.560 that's what's great about your story. And that's why it's important to retell the story, because

00:04:16.980 one of the things the story makes clear is that 1970s, they were no picnic for America. And we were

00:04:22.420 feeling pretty down back then. And then along came you guys. All right. So that's just the intro.

00:04:27.220 But before we get to the miracle on ice and the moments that you guys brought us, let's go back

00:04:32.160 to little Micah Ruzzioni, growing up outside of Boston and explain to us, because I mentioned you

00:04:38.000 were a working class family. Talk to us about the taxi cab. What was it? An old, like used, former

00:04:45.780 taxi cab your dad drove and the kind of house you grew up in and, you know, the skates you were forced

00:04:51.240 to use when you were thinking about playing hockey.

00:04:55.080 Yeah, it's funny you bring that up, because I live actually three houses from the house I grew up in.

00:05:01.240 My cousin bought and built a house on a lot of land next to the house that we grew up in.

00:05:07.580 And we were yelling at him last night how we ruined my kids, my kids generation, because

00:05:12.880 they couldn't play next door like we used to be able to play because he put a house there.

00:05:16.380 But I grew up in a three family house. I thought everybody lived in a three family. I didn't know

00:05:22.660 any better. But we lived in the second floor and I have four sisters and a brother. And

00:05:26.780 upstairs was my mother's brother who married my father's sister. And they were five kids in that

00:05:33.460 family. And in the first floor was my father's other sister. And they were three kids in that family.

00:05:39.840 And when my mother was pregnant, my aunts were pregnant. And we all grew up in that house. We all grew up

00:05:44.180 in that working class environment. My mother stayed home, took care of six kids. My dad worked

00:05:48.300 three jobs. You know, we understood the importance of family. We understood the importance of work

00:05:53.760 to make it, as my mother used to say, I'll find ways to make ends meet. We didn't have television

00:05:59.900 in my house till I was 12. But my uncle had one. So I'd go upstairs and watch TV, or I'd go downstairs

00:06:04.340 and watch TV. Or I didn't like what my mother was making. I'd go upstairs and eat dinner at my aunt's

00:06:09.360 house or have breakfast downstairs at my other aunt's house. And it was basically, I think I

00:06:14.040 said this in the book, three floors with one door. Once you got in the house, you could go wherever

00:06:18.780 you wanted to go. And the funny thing is, we all still live, everybody who grew up in that house,

00:06:24.480 almost all of us still live in my hometown of Winthrop, Mass. And we all had kids. And my

00:06:29.460 cousins had kids the same time as I was having kids. And we had a run at the high school,

00:06:35.480 six years in a row, the outstanding student athlete was somebody who grew up and came out of the

00:06:41.120 three-decker that we lived in. And I sit in my backyard. Actually, this is kind of crazy. My son

00:06:47.900 just bought the house directly behind me. So there's a gate that goes from his house to his

00:06:53.580 yard to my yard. But I can sit on my porch and look up to my left and see the house that I grew

00:06:59.340 up in. And when my dad was alive, he passed away like six years ago. He would come out on the porch

00:07:04.760 and yell down. He'd ask me if I was home. He'd go, you home? I'd go, yeah, I'm home, dad. And he'd get in

00:07:09.860 the car. He'd drive around the corner. He'd come in the house and I'd get him a cold beer. It had

00:07:15.060 to be a cold beer. And it was just the way we lived. And sports was a big part of it. We competed

00:07:21.280 against each other in the backyard, playing, making up games, playing games. And that's what you did

00:07:27.520 in that era. I feel bad for kids today because I think they would have liked growing up without

00:07:34.800 iPads and without computers and just a simple life that we had and found a way to play.

00:07:40.500 You know, yeah, I hate to be rambling on here, but when was the last time you were driving your

00:07:44.740 car and you pulled over because kids were playing in the street? You know, we used to play football,

00:07:49.580 tag football, telephone pole between telephone pole. We'd play street hockey in the street. And

00:07:54.960 you don't see that anymore. It doesn't exist. And that's the way I grew up. And I wouldn't trade

00:08:01.180 that for anything. It's so true. I'll say where I live now, you know, we moved from New York City

00:08:06.480 to Connecticut and we chose a house in a neighborhood, you know, not not something that

00:08:11.460 has acres and acres of land. We we wanted to have neighbors so our kids could play and we'd have

00:08:17.140 friends and so on. And you good luck finding a neighbor after school for your kid to play with

00:08:22.460 because the kids today are so overscheduled. You know, every child has got an after school

00:08:28.300 activity. They're doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then on the weekends,

00:08:31.180 all the games, it's like there's no time for a pickup game of anything. Everyone's got their

00:08:36.360 private coach for this or the private coach for that. It's sad. It's it's not the way we grew up.

00:08:42.780 No. And, you know, I have, you know, I have six grandkids and actually three of them live in

00:08:46.620 Southington, Connecticut, and they are actually up here now for the weekend for Easter. But the other

00:08:51.280 three live down the street from me. And yesterday, not yesterday, it was Easter, but Sunday they had

00:08:56.040 Saturday, they had a soccer game, they had a lacrosse game, and then they had a flag football

00:09:01.520 game. And I was like, let them just stay home and play in the backyard. Although they'll be over

00:09:07.580 here in about a half hour, probably playing basketball in my backyard. But yeah, it's not

00:09:12.540 it's just not the way kids should be. I call them refrigerator kids. You go home and you look on the

00:09:18.160 refrigerator and there's their schedule. Monday, you have this Tuesday. I have that Wednesday. I have

00:09:22.060 that. I never had anything other than, you know, go out and play and come home and the streetlights

00:09:27.440 come on. Yeah, that's right. I seem it was either go outside or just sit in front of the TV. We don't

00:09:34.580 care. My parents didn't schedule me to do anything. It's like, you seem safe. Our goal is to get you to

00:09:41.880 18 and you'll leave and, you know, maybe you'll make some extra dough and we'll get a couple nickels

00:09:46.220 from you. Yeah. It's like now it's like when we have a snowstorm and I've been living in this house.

00:09:53.100 I live in now for 35 years, not once in 35 years has one kid knocked on my door and asked if I could

00:09:59.240 shovel it. Can I shovel your sidewalk? Oh, wow. I dream of snowstorms. I used to I'd go house to

00:10:05.280 house and I might make 15 or 20 bucks in one day just shoveling snow, trying to, you know, waiting for

00:10:10.240 that storm to come. Now, I know I'll even give him my snowbow to use, but see that anymore. It's

00:10:17.820 very it's very different. But, well, hey, that's the way life is. And you deal with it, I guess.

00:10:22.980 So you were living in the right place, by the way, if you wanted to make your money off of plowing

00:10:25.800 people's driveways, because you're right outside of Boston, which is, you know, I grew up from

00:10:29.280 Syracuse and Albany. So I understand living in that kind of a snowy community. That's how you make your

00:10:33.840 dough. There's a sweet story in your book about I mentioned the taxi cab, just so people know what I was

00:10:38.840 talking about. Your car was an old red and white taxi cab. One day you said your dad was driving

00:10:43.540 the steering wheel, came right off. You were going down the road. You looked over at him. He was holding

00:10:46.780 the steering wheel and it wasn't connected to anything. All right. So you were not a rich guy.

00:10:51.760 You used to wear your sister's, your sister Connie's white figure skates when you started to skate,

00:10:55.980 just like on a golf course sand trap, because there was no fair, you know, it wasn't again like today

00:11:00.180 where like you pay a membership for some beautiful hockey club. No, you just like you found a little

00:11:04.620 sand trap. You went, you went, you had little blue pom-poms on the toes of your, the

00:11:08.420 Mike Arruzzioni of the Miracle on Ice team because you couldn't afford your own skates, but your mom

00:11:14.600 made sure eventually you got your own pair of black hide hockey skates, um, so that you could

00:11:20.380 represent properly. And your uncle's going to come into this story in a second, your uncle Tony, when

00:11:24.820 it comes to, uh, snowing shoveling driveways. So tell us what your mom did for you one day and how

00:11:29.600 she managed it. In those days you could save, uh, uh, S and H green stamps. And, um, you know,

00:11:35.900 my mother saw far and saw that this was something I wanted to do. I liked hockey. Um, you know, I

00:11:41.040 didn't know there was no team in my town at that time. I used to skate at the sand trap or down at

00:11:45.800 the tennis courts. They used to freeze the tennis courts and my mom saved up enough stamps. And I

00:11:50.300 came home one day and there was a pair of hide ice skates on the table. Um, so I thought about that,

00:11:54.760 you know, later in life, obviously, maybe, maybe I kind of was born to be a player. You know, my mom gave

00:11:59.360 me this opportunity to, to play a sport that I, at that time wanted to do. I wanted to try,

00:12:04.160 I wanted to play cause my friends played. Um, and that's, that's what it was. And we used to go

00:12:09.640 Sunday mornings. I think it was 25 cents or 50 cents. You would pay the guy to go in the rink

00:12:14.380 when we had a rink in the town next to mine. And you'd learn to skate. You'd learn to play hockey.

00:12:18.580 These, these great parents and fathers who'd started hockey in my hometown, uh, never knowing,

00:12:23.140 you know, what was going to lead to college or the Olympic games, but it was in the wintertime.

00:12:27.060 You had to find something to do and something to play. Hockey was the sport and I, I wanted to play.

00:12:31.980 And I really, you know, kind of fell in love with it at a young age.

00:12:34.980 So think about that. So you're, you're, you must've been born, what? 54?

00:12:39.960 1954. Yeah. All right. So let's say your mom gives those skates. You're, you're what? 12 years

00:12:43.640 old around there, 10 or 12. I think I was about, no, I think I might've been nine or 10 at the time.

00:12:48.460 All right. So let's say it's 1964 and your mom gets, uses those stamps to get you the nice

00:12:52.540 hockey skates. And in, in a way you wonder if like the tectonic plates of the earth shifted,

00:12:58.960 you know what I mean? Like you were the guy, you were the guy who shot the winning goal that,

00:13:03.980 that beat the Russians in this famous, famous, the most famous sports contest of all time.

00:13:10.180 You did it. I mean, I know very well as a team effort, but I'm just saying you're the one who

00:13:13.640 shot the winning goal. It brought so much patriotism and national pride and love and joy

00:13:19.020 into a country that was feeling none of that at the time. You just wonder if in this one moment,

00:13:23.360 destiny's changed. You know, you know, Herb, Herb told us when we were stepping on the ice

00:13:30.220 before the Soviet game, you were born to be players. You were meant to be here. This moment

00:13:34.020 is yours. And he was so right. You know, I think my teammates, for whatever reason, you know,

00:13:39.580 when they were born, I don't know, you know, I'm not a, one of those wackos who believes in all the,

00:13:44.280 you know, karma and all stuff like that, but there had to be a reason we all got together to be on

00:13:50.600 that team. You know, we were maybe born to be players. We, I think we were meant to be there

00:13:54.920 because we worked hard all of our lives, all of us, every one of my teammates. If you followed

00:13:59.840 any of my teammates in their background, most, mostly every one of my teammates came from a

00:14:03.880 working class family that had incredible values of work ethic and pride and commitment and respect

00:14:11.140 qualities that I think made our hockey team so good as well as clearly we had some pretty good

00:14:16.980 hockey players. But, but I think the values that our team had and the work ethic that our team had

00:14:22.260 is, is, is, you know, I think what, what makes this country great. It's people like them, people like

00:14:27.560 my teammates who, and their, and their parents who understood how hard work leads to success. My,

00:14:33.120 my dad always told me, if you understand the value of work at some point in your life, you'll be

00:14:38.380 successful. And it might not be today or tomorrow, but when you're the best at what you do,

00:14:41.880 it's because of the time and effort and work that you put in the sacrifices that were made

00:14:47.040 sacrifices. My dad worked three jobs, you know, not only for me, but my, my sisters and my brother

00:14:52.420 to give us opportunities to do things. And, uh, clearly it led to an incredible moment for me and

00:14:59.120 clearly an incredible moment for my teammates. And as you said, an incredible moment for our country,

00:15:04.940 you know, um, you know, we could use a moment. Yeah. So, uh, so as that, as your dad's imparting

00:15:13.280 these values to you, your life reflects them. Like you, you were playing three sports. You weren't

00:15:18.320 just playing the one, which I do think is interesting. Um, but you, you wanted to do

00:15:22.120 some more hockey. It's just, you weren't from a big town. There wasn't even a hockey rink, as I

00:15:26.160 mentioned. And so you go, you find out one winter that there's going to be a hockey camp nearby

00:15:30.220 run by one of the players from the Bruins, but it costs 75 bucks. So, you know, it wasn't cheap

00:15:37.260 and where are we going to get this kind of money? And that's where uncle Tony came in. What did he

00:15:41.580 do? Yeah. My uncle Tony lived upstairs and he was kind of the breadwinner in the family. He had a

00:15:46.380 pretty good job and, uh, was pretty successful businessman. And, uh, I wanted to go to his hockey

00:15:51.620 school in Lynn, Massachusetts. I think I was 12 years old at the time. And the school was run by a guy

00:15:55.460 named Eddie Shaq who played for the Bruins. And, um, I asked my uncle if I could borrow $75 to go to

00:16:03.120 the camp. And he said, sure, you know, I'll give you the money. So he gave me the $75 and I went to

00:16:09.800 the camp and, you know, I told him I was going to pay him back. And, you know, so be it. A few weeks

00:16:16.320 later, we had a couple of snow storms and out I went and shoveled and I made $75 and I brought it back

00:16:22.340 to him. I brought it upstairs and I said, uncle Tony, thank you very much, you know, for the,

00:16:26.860 for the money. And he gave it back to me. And he said, you learned a valuable lesson. I said,

00:16:32.060 what's that? He goes, when you borrow something from someone, you pay it back. And I never forgot

00:16:38.040 that. And I walked downstairs and I said to my mom, I said, mom, uncle Tony said I could keep the $75.

00:16:44.000 And obviously she put it in a little piggy bank or whatever. And it was there for me, but, uh,

00:16:48.540 it was, it was the first lesson I really understood about, you know, commitment and,

00:16:53.760 uh, you know, responsibility. But it's another chance, you know, that sort of communal living

00:16:59.120 like that gives more than just mom and dad, dad's working three jobs and so on the chance to impart

00:17:04.260 family values, morality. You know, that's what I always say is the great part about going to church

00:17:09.400 on Sundays is you get help imparting morality to your children. That's really what you're doing there

00:17:14.760 in part. It's not just about worship. It's also about, uh, instilling a moral code. And too often

00:17:20.200 now, you know, we all live away from our extended family and it's just up to mom and dad and you can

00:17:24.560 hire a nanny and you could hire a babysitter, but you can't hire uncle Tony. Like that's the,

00:17:30.280 they're just never going to get that same sort of love and care and investment in the kid

00:17:34.300 with paid staff that you are from a family member. Right. And again, like I said, those are values

00:17:40.860 that have stayed with me forever. And hopefully those are the same values that I've instilled in

00:17:44.940 my children. And hopefully those values they're still instilling in their children. So, um, you

00:17:50.780 know, old fashioned values, uh, you know, things that, that I grew up with, uh, you know, money's

00:17:55.300 not, uh, important in life when I was a kid and, and, and we never looked at it that way. Like I said,

00:18:00.420 my mother always found a way, uh, to make ends meet. Um, and whatever you wanted, sometimes you got it

00:18:06.960 and sometimes you didn't get it. And it's again, I was with my sisters yesterday cause it was Easter

00:18:11.880 and we, we, we always say the same line. My mom's favorite line was you'll get nothing and you'll

00:18:16.320 like it. I heard that one. I also heard, uh, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.

00:18:25.640 Come here. I'll tell you. Yeah. When I, it's funny, when I used to see my father with my grandkids,

00:18:30.240 with my kids, I'd look at him and go, is that the same guy that was my father? It's like me with my

00:18:35.520 grandkids. Now they want ice cream. I give them ice cream, M&Ms, give them M&Ms, give them all the

00:18:39.260 candy they want. And you go home and bounce off the walls. You know, I don't have to deal with the

00:18:43.300 craziness, but that's the joy of being the grandpa. All right. So, so, so to the subject of the little

00:18:49.240 athlete, there was hockey, but you thought you were going to be a baseball player. This reminds me of,

00:18:54.580 and you played football and you write in your book about how important your football coach was to you

00:18:57.760 and sort of making a man out of you, making an athlete out of you. Um, I did an interview one time

00:19:03.220 with a coach of the Minnesota Vikings who was telling me, this is back during my time at NBC,

00:19:08.260 who was telling me how he loved it when he got a kid, uh, you know, a young man, um, who played

00:19:15.440 more than one sport in high school, because now everyone specializes from a very young age. And he was

00:19:22.960 talking about the benefits you get from an athlete who's been in multiple sports. And you write about

00:19:27.420 in your book, it's not just the skills from, you know, different sporting challenges. It's also the

00:19:32.080 exposure to multiple coaches and the life lessons you get. So talk about how important that was to

00:19:37.740 the player and man you would become. Well, I think, you know, football was, I loved high school

00:19:42.980 football. I was passionate about football. I had a great coach. We used to call him Vince Lombardi.

00:19:47.300 That's how coaches coached in the seventies. They were in your face. They challenged you every single

00:19:50.860 day. They made you a better athlete. They made you a better person, uh, made you understand. And I'll use

00:19:55.540 that word again, values, how important that work ethic is. Um, and I played more baseball than anything. I played

00:20:01.180 more baseball in my life than hockey. I loved baseball. I couldn't wait for baseball season to start.

00:20:05.620 So for me, it was nice. It was a nice change. Um, you know, I couldn't wait for baseball and then, you know,

00:20:10.960 baseball was winding down. I couldn't wait. Football season's coming in and, you know, football's ending

00:20:14.780 at Thanksgiving. Hey, it's hockey season. Now get ready to play hockey. And, uh, not only to get

00:20:19.180 different coaches with different ideas and different, different methods, but you're playing with different

00:20:23.360 athletes too. Not, you know, not every kid who I played football with played hockey, some play basketballs,

00:20:27.440 you know, not, not all the guys I played baseball with played hockey. So you're hanging with different

00:20:32.280 players, different friends, different teammates. And again, that, that, that helps that makes you

00:20:37.620 well-rounded makes you, um, you know, appreciate the things that you have as far as, you know,

00:20:42.720 being able to play baseball and going out there in the field. And, you know, again, your coach is

00:20:46.980 challenging you in a different way than the hockey coach challenged you. And I, I've always felt

00:20:51.120 because I played those three sports, it made me a better hockey player, uh, skills that I learned in

00:20:55.560 football and skills that I learned in, in baseball helped me on the ice.

00:21:00.380 You write about how in this era, the 1960s, we had the Vietnam war, a lot of kids getting involved

00:21:06.540 in drugs, a lot of rebellion against authority. You refer to, I think it was the football coaches,

00:21:12.260 Difa. Yeah. And coach Difa was trying his level best to make sure you stayed away from all of that.

00:21:19.720 And his method was to be tough on you. I mean, he was all over you, but it was for your own good.

00:21:26.540 Yes. Um, you know, I, I wasn't going to play football and he grabbed me one day in school,

00:21:30.660 like right by the collar and he put me up against the wall and he says, you better be on the football

00:21:34.560 field next week. He says, you're a good player. You'd be a good player for our team. And I was

00:21:39.240 like, okay, I'm going to play football then. Uh, and Bob has become a big part of my life. Uh,

00:21:44.760 still is. I see him often. He lives not far from here. He actually just retired. He was the longest,

00:21:50.240 uh, uh, active baseball coach at Bentley. He was athletic director at Bentley college here.

00:21:55.660 And then, uh, this is his last year, I believe as, as the head baseball coach, but, um, that's

00:22:00.780 how it was tough, call it tough love, whatever you wanted to call it, but that's just the way it was.

00:22:05.060 And, uh, that's how coaches coach, you know, I, I wasn't going to go home and tell my dad,

00:22:09.280 the coach yelled at me because then my dad would yell at me because the coach yelled at me.

00:22:12.600 So those just the way that's the way it was then. And you dealt with it. And it's the same

00:22:17.760 as Herb Brooks, as, as demanding as Herb was, and as challenging as Herb was, you deal with it.

00:22:23.180 That's just, I'm not going to quit. You can yell at me all you want. I'm only going to deal with you

00:22:27.080 for a couple of hours. Um, but I think again, they, they teach you that, um, you know, that

00:22:33.040 respect that you have for coach. And I, I, all, all my coaches, there were a lot of times I didn't

00:22:37.160 like my coaches, but I, but I always respected them. And I always tell people, it's kind of like your

00:22:41.860 dad, you know, you know, you love your dad, but sometimes you hate your dad. Cause he makes you do

00:22:45.360 things you don't want to do. And, and that was the coaches that I had. Um, I hated them sometimes,

00:22:51.060 but I, I totally respected them. And I think that's the important value, um, that I think all

00:22:56.540 my coaches had. And clearly Herb had that, uh, the two things as a coach that you have to have,

00:23:01.180 your players have to trust you and respect you. If your players don't respect you and your players

00:23:05.720 don't trust you, you got to get out of that business because you're not going to win. And I think

00:23:10.540 those things, those qualities that my coaches had with me anyway, was I respected

00:23:15.280 them. And more importantly, I trusted them in what they were doing.

00:23:18.520 They used to teach mental toughness and it's not something you can learn off of a chalkboard

00:23:22.720 in a class. They, they just were tough on you and only the strong would survive. And if you started

00:23:28.120 off weak, but you just had the will to keep going, you could become strong. You weren't destined to a

00:23:32.820 life of weakness. If you started off weak, they knew how to make, as I said, a man out of you.

00:23:37.280 And, um, I just feel like today we just, we, we reject all of that as toxic masculinity. And it's like,

00:23:43.560 it's done so many young men and for that matter, women in sports, such good.

00:23:50.240 It's a slippery slope today. Coaching. Um, and I, you know, I've coached, I help out with our high

00:23:54.640 school team. I've been doing that for 42 years as a volunteer. I, two years, I was a volunteer

00:23:59.480 assistant at Boston university. Um, players are different times are different. Uh, you know,

00:24:05.480 it's, it's not easy being a coach today because you can't, you can't coach. Let's put it this way.

00:24:10.040 You can't coach today. Like they coached in the seventies, just not going to work. It's not going

00:24:13.840 to happen because once you cross that line, you're in trouble, whether it be legally, uh, or, or

00:24:19.860 you're going to lose that player in the locker room. You know, he's going to go home and the coach

00:24:23.600 is yelling at me, coaches, demanding coaches, pushing me coaches, challenging me. And it's almost

00:24:28.720 like it's hard to do today. You can't, you can't coach today like they did in the seventies. So

00:24:32.880 successful coaches find a way to still be, you know, bring those, those values, that work ethic

00:24:38.780 and that commitment, but they got to find a different way to do it. And, um, I think that's

00:24:43.440 the hard thing about coaching kids today. It's just, I don't know. It's, I know, generating like

00:24:48.400 a bunch of soft people who are like, well, you know, whether it's on the coaching field or I don't

00:24:53.420 know, we've seen it so many examples of it where there was a guy, there's a guy I know who works for

00:24:57.700 one of the big investment banks in New York city and he's pretty high up and he had, you know,

00:25:03.020 sort of a younger recruiting class. They were maybe two years into investment banking and literally

00:25:08.120 one of the guy's mothers called him up to complain about juniors work schedule. He's an investment

00:25:14.460 baker. He's making tons of money. He can't make this money anywhere else. And it requires long hours.

00:25:20.160 Why is his mommy calling his boss up? Yeah. My, my parents never questioned anything

00:25:26.900 that my coaches were doing. And, and, you know, again, um, maybe coaches in those days, uh, you

00:25:33.120 know, were, were handled better because the parents didn't deal with it. You know, parents,

00:25:37.920 like I said, I, I could never go home and tell my dad that coach DeFelice made me run, you know,

00:25:43.220 five extra laps because I dropped the pass or I did something wrong because then my dad would,

00:25:47.860 would get on me about making mistakes and can't do that. And the coach is right. So again, it's,

00:25:53.580 it's a, it's a different era. We live in a different time. You know, there's,

00:25:56.900 uh, you know, the Twitter and Facebook and social media today. It's, it's not easy. It's not easy

00:26:03.180 coaching today. And it's not easy being a kid today. It's, it's just the things that are there

00:26:06.960 for them now. So, so different than, than when I was a kid. And, you know, I hate to sound like my

00:26:12.240 father, you know, I walked uphill to school every day, you know, in the snow. So, I mean, those are,

00:26:17.060 you know, things that go on now are so different than, than, than, than, than when I was a kid. And I,

00:26:21.920 I just kind of, you kind of just shake your head and wonder.

00:26:24.460 A hundred percent. But I was joking, uh, not long ago, we were doing a show talking about music

00:26:28.780 and, and just how I, when I turn on the radio, I've become like my Nana, you know, like back in

00:26:33.920 my day, the songs had a melody, you know, who am I? Um, okay. So there's Mike and he's playing his

00:26:40.940 football and he's playing his baseball and he's playing some hockey and he's thinking, okay,

00:26:44.260 you know, and he's not, he's doing pretty well at the hockey and he's thinking, okay, a lot of my

00:26:47.980 friends here are getting recruited for great schools and they're playing. Why not me? I'm pretty good.

00:26:52.380 Guess who came calling? No one. So how did that kid wind up shooting the game winning goal in the

00:26:59.620 miracle on ice? That's where we pick it up right after this quick break more with Mike Arruzzioni.

00:27:05.980 So excited to be having this conversation today. And don't forget folks, you can find the Megan

00:27:09.700 Kelly show live on Sirius XM triumph channel one 11 every weekday at noon East and our full video show

00:27:15.640 and clips by subscribing to our YouTube channel. It's youtube.com slash Megan Kelly. If you prefer

00:27:21.340 an audio podcast, sometimes that's nice. If you miss the show live, you can go ahead and subscribe

00:27:26.140 and download on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. And

00:27:32.380 there you'll find our full archives with more than 300 shows. We'll be right back.

00:27:37.180 I love how you say every underdog story involves a bit of luck. And my life has been defined by three

00:27:51.100 incredible lucky breaks. Three points where something fortunate happened and changed the

00:27:55.840 course of my life. One was meeting your wife. One was being quote on the ice in the right place at the

00:28:02.560 right time on February 22, 1980 in Lake Placid, New York, when you scored that goal. And another

00:28:09.500 is one people may not know about if they had, unless they've read your book, which was a chance

00:28:13.940 encounter you had with Jack Parker in August, 1973. So tell us what happened in 1973 that led to you

00:28:23.260 meeting this guy and how he changed your life. Well, you know, I, you know, I played three sports in high

00:28:29.260 school and, um, I, I wasn't, I wasn't the greatest student in the world. Um, I mean, for me, as long

00:28:34.680 as I stayed eligible, I was happy. Uh, and, uh, I, I wanted, I went to prep school for a year. I

00:28:40.200 graduated high school. I was about 155 pounds, maybe 160 tops. And I needed another year academically

00:28:46.720 as well as athletically. Uh, I ended up going to a school in Maine called Burwick Academy, a great

00:28:52.380 little place. I'm not far from Boston, about an hour and 15, hour and 20 minutes. And I went there

00:28:57.240 as a postgraduate. And I went there with the hope of going to the university of New Hampshire.

00:29:01.740 That's where I wanted to go to school. And the football coach really liked me. He thought he was

00:29:05.460 a pretty good player. He saw me playing a couple of, in an all-star game and the baseball coach,

00:29:09.720 because I think at that point, baseball was probably one of my best sports. He really liked

00:29:13.400 me. Unfortunately, the hockey coach, he didn't think I was a division one player. So I put all my eggs

00:29:19.160 in one basket. I thought, who's, you know, of course I'm going to go to UNH. They won't, they,

00:29:22.780 you know, the coaches love me. I'm going to go there. Well, I had no school to go to.

00:29:28.240 And at the time, nobody had recruited me. So the only person that really watched me play was a guy

00:29:33.060 named Tom Lawler, who was the head coach at Merrimack College. Merrimack was a division two

00:29:38.480 school at the time. They weren't division one. And I accepted the scholarship to go to Merrimack.

00:29:44.460 A few people listening, it was $3,500 in 1973, 74. So I'm all set. I'm going to go to Merrimack College.

00:29:51.860 Well, in the summer, I played baseball in the summer. And I got a call from a friend of mine.

00:29:56.380 And he said, we have a summer league game in Billerica, Mass at the Billerica Forum. And a bunch

00:30:01.540 of the guys went to the Cape for a weekend. Cape Cod, do you want to play? I said, well, you need to

00:30:05.340 play. So I showed up at the game and I played in the summer league game. And it turned out the guy

00:30:13.200 refereeing the game was a guy named Jack Parker. I didn't know who Jack Parker was. He just, you know,

00:30:18.920 he was the referee in the game. And when the game was over, he pulled me aside.

00:30:21.600 And he was the assistant coach at Boston University. And he said, we have a kid from Canada that

00:30:27.120 decided not to come. Would you like to come to Boston University? And now Boston University is

00:30:32.240 basically coming off back-to-back national championships. They were, you know, one of the

00:30:35.840 top schools in the country. And I said, geez, yeah, I'd like that. He goes, well, why don't you come and

00:30:40.740 see me tomorrow? And we'll talk about it. So I went home and told my dad the story. And my dad said,

00:30:45.040 what are you going to do? I said, you know, I'm going to go to BU. I said, I can play, I can play

00:30:48.220 there. So I go meet coach Parker the next day. And I said, it has to be a full scholarship. And he

00:30:52.980 goes, no, it's, it was again, 35 or 3,700 bucks. I said, my dad can't afford to, you know, that kind

00:30:59.180 of money. He goes, no, full scholarship. You're all set. Come to BU. So I went to BU and tried out for

00:31:04.820 the hockey team. And the beginning, I was kind of wondering if I was going to make the team. The head

00:31:07.940 coach didn't know me from Adam, knew nothing about me. But I made the, I made the team. I was,

00:31:12.640 I was centering the fourth line and we had played around two or three games and I was playing a

00:31:16.440 little, not a lot. I think I had a goal and an assist and right around Christmas, Leon Abbott got

00:31:20.560 fired. But apparently there was some recruiting violations that were going on that none of us

00:31:25.020 knew about. And Jack Parker became the head coach. So I went from centering the fourth line to playing

00:31:30.900 left wing on the second line. And I think I led the team in goal scoring my freshman year. So I always

00:31:36.800 tell people, you know, life's about opportunities. And Jack Parker gave me that opportunity. You know,

00:31:42.620 I could have shown up at that summer league game and just kind of played and went through the

00:31:45.360 motions, but that wasn't my makeup. That's not the way I played any sports. And again,

00:31:49.400 I'll go back to my dad always told me, you play hard, you work hard. You know, you might strike

00:31:53.080 out. If you pop up, you run the first base things that, again, those values that I talked about earlier,

00:31:57.880 that was so important to me. It was a summer league game, but to me, it was important to play hard and

00:32:02.600 work hard. I didn't know who the guy refereeing the game was. So again, Jack Parker became the head

00:32:07.960 coach at Boston University. And, you know, I played four years there under Jack. And I think

00:32:12.820 I graduated as the second all-time leading scorer in BU history. I think I'm fourth or fifth now,

00:32:17.840 which means we've been getting great players, which is good for the school and good for the

00:32:20.920 program. So, you know, fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. But again, life's about

00:32:26.780 opportunities. And I was given one and I took advantage of it. And if I had never gone to Boston

00:32:31.980 University, clearly I wouldn't have been on the Olympic team.

00:32:34.680 That's right. Years after I graduated from college.

00:32:37.820 Well, the other thing your dad told me, or told me, told you, and you call him Jeep in the book. I

00:32:42.860 like that. So the other thing Jeep told you was no whining, no whining, just work hard, you know,

00:32:48.460 nose to the grindstone. And you read about how originally they put you on the JV team. You didn't

00:32:52.920 whine. You just tried harder. Then they move you up, as you say, fourth line here, you weren't starting,

00:32:57.480 no whining, just work harder. Then the next thing you know, you're setting all sorts of records for the

00:33:01.380 school. And before that, you're, you're on the Miracle on Ice team. And I, all I could think

00:33:05.420 about was, there's a story last year, the year before, I don't know, but it was when the,

00:33:09.500 the players like Naomi Osaka started to complain about how she didn't want to do press conferences.

00:33:14.400 And then they actually created like private meditation rooms, Mike, for all of the professional

00:33:21.940 tennis players, because they needed like a private mental health room before they went out,

00:33:28.400 you know, and I tweeted about, this is nonsense. Like I can't, like, I would never want these

00:33:33.340 people representing me in the U S military. Can you imagine? Like, I've just got to go do my

00:33:36.780 private, you know, mantra before I go out, like, no, toughen up for the love of God and have some

00:33:42.640 perspective on what it is you're doing. Yeah. Again, you're dealing with different athletes.

00:33:48.380 It's a different era, different time. You know, at Boston university, you know, we got strength

00:33:52.120 conditioning coaches. We got the psychologists that meet with the students and meet with the

00:33:56.220 athletes. You know, you know, when kids today, and I get, I kind of laugh about it and not laugh

00:34:02.900 because I know there are some issues out there, but you know, when kids today, they're called

00:34:06.860 hyperactive and they give them medication to balance things off. When I was a kid, you were

00:34:11.380 pain in the ass. You know, I go to my father, Hey dad, I'm hyperactive. Come here. I'll show you

00:34:17.020 hyperactive. But again, we're dealing with it at a different, different time. And you know,

00:34:22.360 some of these athletes have some issues, have some mental issues. And it's, I can't fathom it

00:34:28.380 because I never had anything like that, but is there that much pressure on them? Is it that much

00:34:32.640 more demanding? Is it that much more difficult today than it was, you know, back when, you know,

00:34:38.320 major league baseball players played baseball or football or hockey or whatever sports nothing was

00:34:43.260 there then. Now, did some of those athletes need that kind of help? Maybe they did. And we didn't know

00:34:48.820 it, but it seems to be more of the norm now than, than it ever was.

00:34:53.620 You get to a miracle on ice team. You got her Brooks creating the psychological issues. Then

00:34:58.020 you'd have a sports psychologist trying to fix them. That's how that would have worked.

00:35:02.380 But you were, you were born to play for a guy like Herb, given that experience that we just

00:35:06.520 discussed. So you're playing for Boston. You did some stints in sort of international hockey league

00:35:12.100 and sort of the equivalent of a triple a hockey league. And one thing leads to another, you get

00:35:18.780 a tryout, you'd done some national championship teamwork. So you've been playing at the national

00:35:25.100 level and recruited as somebody who is one of our, one of our best, but how did you wind up being one

00:35:31.460 of the 26? Cause of course now that as portrayed in the movies, they took 26 players, Herb, Herb selected

00:35:36.780 26 players for the 1980 Olympic hockey hockey team, but only 20 could go. So six guys the whole time

00:35:42.460 knew they were going to get cut. You just didn't know who, so how did you become one of the 26?

00:35:47.720 Um, I guess Herb liked me. I never really thought about it. You know, I mean, you, you always worried.

00:35:53.980 I mean, he threatened to cut me. He said, I'm going to cut you. And I'm thinking he can't cut me on the

00:35:57.380 captain. I'm thinking, you know what? He could cut me. That's, that's just the way it was. He challenged

00:36:01.300 you throughout the course of the, of the year. But, um, you know, again, keep your nose to the

00:36:06.040 grindstone and try to prove that you should be one of the 20 players. Even though I was the captain

00:36:10.120 of a team, I, you know, I wasn't the best player on our team. I'd like to think I was an important

00:36:13.720 part of our team. Like every member of my team was, I mean, I've, I've said many times, we don't

00:36:18.180 win without Mark Johnson. You know, Mark Johnson was unbelievable on Lake Placid. When we needed a

00:36:23.020 goal, it would be like magic. We need a goal and hit score it. But I think that's what made our team so

00:36:27.320 special was everybody had a role. Everybody understood what they needed to do in order for our team to win.

00:36:32.280 And maybe Herb saw a role in me. He saw something in me, um, as you know, either the captain of the

00:36:38.760 team or, or somebody that my teammates respected, uh, on the ice, but more importantly, maybe off the

00:36:44.360 ice. I still don't believe, and I've never even asked her or any of my teammates. I don't believe

00:36:50.840 I was voted captain by my teammates. There's no way 12 guys from Minnesota are voting for somebody

00:36:55.700 from Boston.

00:36:56.280 I love this story. Cause most of the team had, had played for Herb at Minnesota and they were

00:37:02.040 from Minnesota and there was an East coast, West coast. Well, I guess Midwest, uh, rivalry.

00:37:06.960 Right. You know, Minnesota and Massachusetts guys, especially the BU guys, we didn't get along

00:37:11.600 with the Minnesota guys prior to this trial. So people wondered, can this team come together,

00:37:16.240 you know, so many, you know, issues that might, you know, take place. Although none of them ever

00:37:21.000 even happened. Once our team was picked away, we bonded even to this, to this day, uh, there's a

00:37:26.340 bond and a love and a friendship that we have and we'll always have, but people wondered at the

00:37:30.400 beginning. And I'm thinking maybe, you know, they voted for a guy from Minnesota. Uh, I voted for

00:37:36.020 Buzzy Schneider, uh, and actually Jack O'Callaghan, one of my Boston teammates, he didn't even vote for

00:37:41.160 me. So I'm thinking, you know, Herb felt that, you know, he couldn't have a guy from Minnesota as

00:37:47.420 captain. It might create some issues in the locker room. And for whatever reason I was selected.

00:37:53.100 Wow. This is a great story. So in the, in the 2004, again, a movie miracle starring Kurt Russell,

00:37:59.400 who did a great job as Herb Brooks, they play a scene. They have a scene in which the,

00:38:04.320 the young Eruzione stands out amongst his team after a particularly tough, it's not really a

00:38:10.940 practice. You guys had lost a hockey game. Herb did not think you should have lost. He thought you'd

00:38:17.420 phoned it in. And this is based on, on reality. And you'll tell me where the differences are,

00:38:22.900 but I know that they, as portrayed in the movie, he just kept making you do drills back and forth

00:38:27.240 again, again, again, again. And in the movie, the assistant coach is growing uncomfortable.

00:38:31.460 The team doctor is growing uncomfortable with the amount he's putting on you guys. There's no mercy

00:38:36.440 in this, in the movie until a young player named Michael Eruzione figures out, because the whole movie,

00:38:42.020 they, they've been saying, who do you play for? And Michael Eruzione would have said,

00:38:44.840 Boston university. The other guys would have said Minnesota. And finally, this is the moment where

00:38:49.520 the team starts to get no, no more East West. It's team USA. We have it queued up. Let's watch soundbite

00:38:57.500 and listen to three. Everybody get on that line. Hey, again, again, again,

00:39:19.380 again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, he again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, I again, 서 Owens.

00:39:36.380 We're through Massachusetts.

00:39:53.060 Who do you play for?

00:39:55.900 I play for the United States of America.

00:39:59.900 That's all, gentlemen.

00:40:10.780 So good.

00:40:12.000 I don't really even care if it was true.

00:40:14.560 It's just so well done dramatically.

00:40:16.300 It gives you all the feels.

00:40:18.100 But I do, I am curious.

00:40:19.980 Was it true?

00:40:20.560 Did it happen like that?

00:40:22.560 I would like to say it did.

00:40:24.620 It's a great line.

00:40:27.000 What happened was we tied Norway that night.

00:40:29.900 And only 16 of us dressed.

00:40:32.720 A lot of times we'd only dress 16 players, even though there were 26 of us.

00:40:35.960 Herb thought three lines, conditioning, whatever.

00:40:38.280 And we always practiced the day of a game.

00:40:40.000 So we skated that morning, practiced, played the game.

00:40:43.840 And the game ended in a tie.

00:40:46.900 Buzzy Schneider got thrown out of the game for fighting.

00:40:49.480 So there were only 15 of us left.

00:40:51.440 Then we proceeded to shake hands with the Norwegian players.

00:40:54.360 And we started to skate off the ice.

00:40:56.000 And that's when Herb blew the whistle.

00:40:57.860 And he brought us down and went into the rink.

00:40:59.900 And we continued.

00:41:01.100 And we did the Herbys.

00:41:01.920 We used to call them Herbys.

00:41:03.960 Today they're suicides or gassers.

00:41:05.860 And we'd do them 15 minutes at a time.

00:41:08.280 Then we'd stretch.

00:41:09.820 Then he blew the whistle.

00:41:10.820 And we went back and did it again.

00:41:11.900 Then we'd stretch.

00:41:12.560 And then we'd do it again.

00:41:13.260 And then they shut the lights off in the building.

00:41:15.480 We probably did them for about an hour and 15 minutes after the game.

00:41:19.520 I remember Mark Johnson smashing his stick against the boards.

00:41:22.800 And Herb said, if I hear another stick smash against the boards, you'll skate till you die.

00:41:27.660 Well, we continued to do them.

00:41:29.280 Then we went back in the locker room.

00:41:30.620 And Herb said, if you play this way again tomorrow, you're going to skate again.

00:41:33.320 Well, we went eight to nothing the next day.

00:41:36.720 So he got the message across to us.

00:41:38.800 But when I saw the scene in the movie, I asked the director, a producer, I said, why?

00:41:43.400 I said, that's a pretty powerful statement.

00:41:45.620 He said, I had to show at some point where you were going to be the leader and the captain of the team.

00:41:50.800 And although I've said many times, we had a team of leaders, 20 players in that team, all captains of their high school or college teams.

00:41:58.340 But he said, I've heard you speak.

00:41:59.980 And I hear you talk about pride and what it means to represent your country, how important it is to put a USA jersey on the front.

00:42:07.360 And I've felt that from day one.

00:42:09.200 And I go back to my dad was a Marine.

00:42:11.620 So we understood how important this country is and what this country gives you and the opportunities it gives you.

00:42:17.620 And he said, I just felt that would be a great way to show that your support and your love for this country, that would be a great way to kind of do that.

00:42:25.800 And I went, well, thank you.

00:42:28.000 But that's still a pretty powerful statement.

00:42:30.900 Well, to me, it shows, yes, you emerging as a leader.

00:42:34.320 But also, it seems to be the moment where the team is truly gelling.

00:42:38.580 The rivalries are melting away.

00:42:40.640 The hatred of Herb is uniform, you know, and that's right by design.

00:42:46.380 And that's really one of the reasons he's remembered as such a great coach.

00:42:50.400 I mean, they address it in the film saying they have the team doctor having a private conversation with the assistant coach, Craig, saying maybe what he's doing is he's trying to make himself the common enemy for all these guys, as opposed to having this rivalry amongst the guys.

00:43:05.640 Absolutely.

00:43:06.520 Absolutely.

00:43:07.040 That was, you know, he used to say to us, there's a method to my madness.

00:43:10.720 And, you know, I was just with Craig Patrick last week or two weeks ago, and we kind of talked about that.

00:43:15.000 That was his intention.

00:43:17.220 He was going to be the bad guy.

00:43:18.780 It was us against him.

00:43:20.380 Craig Patrick.

00:43:21.220 People don't realize how important Craig Patrick was to our team.

00:43:24.100 We needed that.

00:43:25.180 It was a good cop, bad cop situation.

00:43:27.320 And Herb stayed true to form.

00:43:29.160 I mean, he stayed absolutely that way all season long.

00:43:32.940 It was us against him.

00:43:34.040 He was going to prove, you know, he didn't, like I said earlier, he didn't care if we liked him, but we respected him.

00:43:39.800 And it was important that he felt he had to coach that way and not have any favoritism, don't show any favoritism towards the Minnesota players.

00:43:47.640 And, you know, I remember years after the Olympics, Herb would call the house.

00:43:51.480 And here I am married with three kids, and my wife would say, it's Herb.

00:43:54.780 And I'm thinking, oh, my God, he's going to yell at me.

00:43:57.200 But, you know, I'm 40-something years old, and he's going to, you know, he stayed that way until he passed.

00:44:03.180 And, you know, I think he would have loved to have been close to this team.

00:44:06.420 I think he would have loved to hang around with us after the Olympics and go to parties that we would have, gatherings.

00:44:12.440 You know, he never showed up.

00:44:13.720 When we ever had team outings, he always stayed back.

00:44:16.620 And he'd call me later and go, how'd it go?

00:44:18.420 Everybody there?

00:44:19.080 Everybody have fun?

00:44:19.860 I said, Herb, will you come to one of these things?

00:44:22.600 No, you guys enjoy the moment.

00:44:23.900 And he stayed true to form right until the end.

00:44:27.080 That's so great.

00:44:28.340 That was just his approach to you guys.

00:44:30.300 He seemed to see you as more important.

00:44:33.660 The team dynamic, the relationship between the 26 and then ultimately 20 of you was more important.

00:44:41.160 When we beat the Soviets, he never said, good game, congratulations.

00:44:45.360 When we beat Finland to win the gold medal, he never came in the locker room and said, what a great job.

00:44:49.920 Way to go, guys.

00:44:50.620 He stood back and just let us enjoy the moment.

00:44:53.460 He let us embrace each other, hug each other, cry together in the locker room.

00:44:57.560 And he just stepped back and just watched it.

00:45:01.120 And that had to be hard to do, to not want to jump on us and jump in the room.

00:45:06.920 And, you know, after the game, he went right to the locker room.

00:45:09.800 And people said, why didn't he come on the ice?

00:45:11.440 And I said, if he ever came on the ice, the guys would have went, oh, now you want to be friendly.

00:45:15.320 Now you want to be close to us because, one, he stayed away right till the end.

00:45:20.280 And I think, you know, I've never talked to his wife or kids about it, but I kind of think that was hard for him to do.

00:45:26.640 But he never wavered.

00:45:28.660 He stayed true right till the end.

00:45:30.740 Didn't you hear him at some point, Mike, say, I love this team or I love the guys on this team?

00:45:37.640 And everybody was like, what?

00:45:40.320 He died?

00:45:40.880 What?

00:45:41.220 I think he said that at a press conference, but he didn't say it to us.

00:45:47.340 He said it to the media because we weren't allowed to talk to the media during the games.

00:45:51.700 We didn't know what people were writing or saying.

00:45:53.940 We had no idea the world was watching the way they were.

00:45:56.860 I mean, we knew people in Lake Placid were excited.

00:45:59.340 I knew my family at home was excited because I'd call home once in a while and check in.

00:46:03.260 But no clue that this moment was what it became.

00:46:06.760 And I think part of the reason Herb didn't want us to talk to the media was because it would have always been the same people.

00:46:12.600 It would have been Mark Johnson, obviously, because he was so great a player.

00:46:15.560 It would have been me because captain.

00:46:17.100 It would have been Jim Craig.

00:46:18.400 But we were four lines of players.

00:46:21.040 We were six defensemen.

00:46:22.580 We were two goaltenders.

00:46:24.140 We were 20 players.

00:46:26.200 And Herb wanted to make sure that we understood that it was 20 players and not one, two, or three.

00:46:30.820 And I think he felt if we did go to press conferences, that that would have been what it would have been like.

00:46:36.580 And he didn't want to see that.

00:46:38.260 And I'm glad he did it because we didn't have to talk to anybody.

00:46:41.580 That's amazing.

00:46:42.300 It's it's I mean, I understand him not showing you the love before the win.

00:46:47.240 But after the gold medal, in my mind, I pictured him with you guys at the parties and saying, I've loved you all along.

00:46:54.200 I always thought you were the best.

00:46:55.480 So he never sort of broke roll.

00:46:58.580 Right.

00:46:59.280 We we beat Finland to win the gold medal.

00:47:01.600 And we celebrated, obviously, in the locker room.

00:47:03.880 There was no champagne or alcohol, none of that.

00:47:06.220 And most of my teammates weren't old enough to drink.

00:47:08.420 I mean, the average age drinking age was 21.

00:47:10.680 And I think our average age of our team was 22, 21 and a half.

00:47:13.820 So we weren't a party team at all.

00:47:16.560 I mean, I think the Boston guys might have took care of the Minnesota guys when it came to party.

00:47:20.440 But I remember we win the gold medal and Herb calls me into the back area in the shower area.

00:47:25.480 And he says, look, Mike, I just found out that President Carter is sending a plane to take the Olympians to the White House tomorrow at 6 a.m.

00:47:33.620 I want you to make sure that everybody's in bed early and nobody acts up tonight.

00:47:38.160 I looked at him.

00:47:39.500 I said, who's going to watch me?

00:47:41.820 That's crazy.

00:47:42.440 But I got to tell you, we basically stayed out pretty much all night just having some beers and drinking and celebrating with with each other and our families.

00:47:50.320 I want to squeeze in a break and I want to pick it back up with more on this conversation.

00:47:54.380 And we've made we've let the audience wait long enough.

00:47:57.400 Let's get to it.

00:47:58.220 The miracle on ice, how it went down, the emotions of the guys and how Mike sees the world today, in particular with respect to Russia.

00:48:06.860 Don't go.

00:48:07.480 I don't miss that.

00:48:10.940 Mike, let's just spend a minute on how good the Russians were.

00:48:17.100 I mean, they truly were considered unbeatable by everyone.

00:48:21.840 And you did not go into the Olympics thinking we got a decent chance at gold.

00:48:26.380 No, you know, we went into first of all, we didn't even talk about the Russians at all.

00:48:31.360 They were in the other division.

00:48:32.980 We needed to worry about Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Finland and West Germany, as well as Norway and Romania.

00:48:39.600 But, you know, those are the three countries that people thought were going to beat us.

00:48:43.280 They thought we'd beat Norway and beat Romania.

00:48:45.380 But the other three, they didn't think we had a chance of beating.

00:48:48.380 So going in the Olympic Games, our goal was to get to the medal round.

00:48:52.920 You get to the medal round and anything can happen once you're there.

00:48:55.580 And I hate to sound cliche-ish, but it was really one game at a time.

00:48:59.760 That was our mindset.

00:49:01.200 You know, we played Sweden before the opening ceremonies.

00:49:03.780 The games hadn't even begun yet.

00:49:05.460 And we played Sweden and the building wasn't even that crowded.

00:49:09.160 And not many people were at the game because I don't think people thought we were going to win any games anyway.

00:49:13.420 So, you know, I think arguably the biggest goal of the Olympics probably was Billy Baker's with 28 seconds left to go.

00:49:21.320 We tie Sweden two to two.

00:49:22.520 We didn't play really well, but, you know, to get a point out of that game was huge.

00:49:27.480 It was a big confidence builder for our team.

00:49:30.660 And then we took care of business.

00:49:32.400 You know, we beat the Czechs seven to three and nobody thought, everybody thought the Czechs were the only team that could beat the Soviets.

00:49:38.120 So, you know, when we beat them now, all of a sudden it was like, hey, what's going on in hockey?

00:49:42.780 This team's got to miss.

00:49:43.820 Well, because what I understood was and I'm not, you know, I don't know much about hockey, but my understanding from your book and other sources is that the Russians were just they were considered unbeatable.

00:49:54.380 It was like maybe you could do something, but no, no one thinks you can beat the Russians like beating the Russians is not going to happen.

00:50:00.560 Maybe her Brooks had it in the back of his head, but none of the pundits, none of the sports analysts, none of the teams.

00:50:06.900 And then American hockey, you know, growing up, you know, more recently, people think of the NHL is amazing.

00:50:13.400 I don't think that they American hockey has changed a lot because back then you write about how like at the NHL was recruiting foreigners, like not not Americans.

00:50:22.600 And at a lot of these schools to these universities, they were recruiting foreigners, they didn't want a bunch of American kids because we weren't really the greatest when it came to hockey.

00:50:31.580 So you guys kind of went in as like, you know, the not greatest reputation team like the Americans are never known for the hockey at this point.

00:50:39.480 And the Russians are known as the greatest in the world and totally unbeatable.

00:50:42.680 Well, you know, we lost the Soviets 10 to three right before the Olympic Games.

00:50:46.640 The last game we played was in Madison Square Garden and that Soviet team beat us 10 to three.

00:50:50.800 So obviously people didn't think we had any chance of winning a medal, let alone winning the whole tournament.

00:50:56.920 So, you know, as I always tell people, if you think you're going to lose, you probably will.

00:51:01.440 So our mindset going in was, again, let's play one game at a time and get to the medal round.

00:51:06.400 If you get to the medal round, anything can happen.

00:51:08.600 And that was our mindset.

00:51:09.880 And that was Herb's mindset for our team was let's play the game and find out.

00:51:14.720 And, you know, clearly we were a lot better hockey team, you know, when we played the Soviets the second time than the first time.

00:51:20.800 I think the first time we stood around and watched and was like, oh, my God, that's the Soviets.

00:51:24.120 And I think we were down six to nothing at one point and kind of played a little better the last two periods of the game.

00:51:30.240 But going into the game in Lake Placid against the Soviets was a totally different team.

00:51:37.680 Our confidence level was, you know, ready to go.

00:51:41.560 And did we think we could win?

00:51:43.460 You know, we knew it was going to be hard.

00:51:45.060 We knew it was going to be difficult.

00:51:46.340 But, again, you know, let's play and find out.

00:51:49.520 And, you know, that's why that's why you play the game.

00:51:53.220 And, you know, if we had to play him and I think Herb said it, if we had to play him 10 more times, we might have lost 10 games.

00:51:59.780 But that wasn't the way the tournament was set up.

00:52:02.420 We would you had to play one game and we were ready to play that game.

00:52:05.600 There's that classic line from the movie where he's saying they'd beat you, you know, nine out of 10 times.

00:52:09.340 Not tonight, not this game.

00:52:12.800 So the Russians, this is from your book, five years earlier, you had gone to this international event and you write the international hockey.

00:52:21.540 No one could touch them.

00:52:22.700 The Russians by 1975, they had taken gold at three Olympics in a row and nine of the last 10 world championships.

00:52:30.780 They hardly ever even lost a game at that tournament.

00:52:34.660 We the Americans played 10 games and lost every single one.

00:52:37.320 The United States was a long way from being a serious contender in international hockey.

00:52:41.660 So you get to Lake Placid five years later on the Olympic team this time.

00:52:45.780 And the Russians hadn't lost a game at the Olympics in 12 years.

00:52:50.340 No U.S. team had won against the Soviets since 1960 at the Olympics, 20 years earlier.

00:52:56.580 And the Boston Globe was saying, quote, nobody's going to touch the Russians.

00:53:01.340 All the press was writing.

00:53:02.760 No, maybe maybe they could get the bronze, the U.S.

00:53:06.280 It's possible we could get the bronze or maybe if like God shines on them, possibly a silver.

00:53:12.200 But like the outside world was not looking at our guys as possible gold medal contenders.

00:53:16.540 Hence the relative yawn when you guys were playing.

00:53:20.400 But you but you were having a very different experience.

00:53:22.780 And talk to us because this is where sort of the the outside world versus your own mentality come in.

00:53:29.240 Like America wasn't doing so well in 1980 and the mood wasn't very positive or sunny and we weren't feeling very patriotic.

00:53:38.700 And you guys, I don't want to say you had the weight of the world on you because that's not the way Herb set it up for you.

00:53:44.580 That's not the way you set it up for yourselves.

00:53:45.960 So it was a bit of a not a clash, but maybe just a contrast in the country versus your own individual mindsets.

00:53:52.260 You know, to us, it was a hockey game, an opportunity to win a game and get to the medal game, get to the gold medal game.

00:54:00.740 Clearly, we found out later that it was much more than a hockey game.

00:54:04.080 It was far bigger to a lot of people.

00:54:07.000 For the hockey fan, it was a hockey game.

00:54:08.820 But for people in this country and we found out later, it was, you know, we needed something to feel good about as a country.

00:54:14.740 We were like, the hostages have been taken, Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, the gas lines, inflation, you know, and I've said this before, kind of like what we're dealing with today.

00:54:25.320 But I think it's a little worse now than it was in 1979 and 1980.

00:54:28.740 And along we come, a bunch of this Herb called us lunch pail hard hat group of guys.

00:54:34.320 But I think people related to our team, they saw where we came from.

00:54:38.600 They saw our backgrounds.

00:54:39.860 Like I said to you earlier, Megan, we came from working class families.

00:54:43.800 What makes this country so great is the people like our parents and what they taught us and the values and the work ethic that our team had.

00:54:51.740 People saw that and they related to that.

00:54:54.060 I remember somebody did a story after.

00:54:56.800 It was, we were the boy next door.

00:55:00.320 We were the kid next door who you saw up in the street playing, you know, street hockey.

00:55:05.180 We were the kid next door that all of a sudden you look at and saw, wow, he's on the Olympic team playing, you know, for the United States.

00:55:11.900 That's the kid that lives across the street from me.

00:55:13.800 And I think people saw that in us.

00:55:15.660 They saw that work ethic.

00:55:16.760 They saw that, you know, we love America type of a hockey team.

00:55:20.360 And we did.

00:55:21.140 We took great pride in putting that jersey on that says USA across the front.

00:55:24.600 I think people saw that and related to that.

00:55:26.580 And then by winning, it just skyrocketed.

00:55:30.100 I can't tell you how many times people come up to me today and they'll say exactly this.

00:55:35.180 I remember where I was when we won.

00:55:37.700 And I go, we?

00:55:38.760 I didn't know you were on the team.

00:55:40.740 But that's what people felt like.

00:55:42.900 They felt like they were a part of us.

00:55:44.960 And people were proud to wave the flag after, you know, after we won.

00:55:49.920 And prior to that, people were wondering, where are we headed?

00:55:52.840 Where is this country going?

00:55:54.180 And I think Jimmy Carter even said it.

00:55:55.940 He said, we are a country that's, you know, headed in the wrong direction.

00:56:00.540 And we need something to feel good about.

00:56:03.160 And it was us.

00:56:04.860 And people felt that way.

00:56:06.140 I remember we would get telegrams and we would put them up on the wall in the locker room.

00:56:12.120 It was a great way to spend the day sometimes.

00:56:13.720 You'd sit in your locker on your stall there and open up telegrams and read them and put

00:56:17.840 them up on the wall.

00:56:18.620 And I remember we got, I think I can say this in the air, but we got a telegram from a lady

00:56:23.120 in Texas.

00:56:24.360 And all it said was, beat those commie bastards.

00:56:27.860 It had nothing to do with a hockey game.

00:56:29.740 But people in this country were looking for something.

00:56:33.040 And clearly the Soviets, a threat of a cold war, what was happening between the two countries

00:56:36.660 from, again, like we're talking today.

00:56:39.700 And it happened to be us.

00:56:41.960 And I think, again, my teammates and I took great pride in that game.

00:56:46.480 But, and I say but, because if we don't beat Finland, we don't win the gold medal.

00:56:52.020 If we don't beat Finland, there's a chance we could have come in third place and maybe

00:56:55.220 even fourth place and not even won a medal.

00:56:57.220 So as great as the Soviet game was, the Finnish game was the biggest game we'd ever play.

00:57:02.860 And, and I've said this many times, imagine if we lose to Finland, then people coming up

00:57:07.200 to me and saying, geez, what a great Olympics, but boy, if you only could have beat Finland

00:57:11.080 to win.

00:57:11.540 So as great as the Soviet victory was, the Finland game became, became even greater.

00:57:17.120 Now, and speaking of that, because I've talked to my kids about this, this, this does not

00:57:20.880 appear in Miracle, but, and you are allowed to swear on this show.

00:57:25.280 When you did go into the Finland game, I guess you tell me, but my memory serves, this happened

00:57:31.280 during halftime when you were down, you guys love to come from behind.

00:57:34.680 And that's so scary for the fans and for the family members of the players.

00:57:38.500 But so you go into the hat, into the locker room at halftime and Herb Brooks had this sort

00:57:44.900 of infamous line about what would happen if you did not win this gold medal.

00:57:49.560 What did he say?

00:57:51.340 Well, we're losing two to one going into what in hockey would be the third period.

00:57:54.900 Um, you know, we, we were trailing, uh, and I, and again, I, I'll get to the story in a

00:58:00.520 minute, but I'm going to give you a little fact that I didn't even know about, uh, Robbie

00:58:04.600 McClanahan, one of my teammates mentioned this a while ago, we outscored our opponents in

00:58:08.860 the third period, 17 to three.

00:58:11.660 That's amazing number.

00:58:13.020 Anybody who follows sports 17 to three, we were trailing Sweden.

00:58:16.180 We came back in tied and we were trailing Czechoslovakia.

00:58:18.680 We were trailing Norway.

00:58:19.960 We were trailing the West Germany by two goals.

00:58:22.140 We were trailing the Soviets throughout the game and came back and won.

00:58:25.620 I think that, again, that's a true Testament of our team and the character and the values

00:58:30.160 and the work ethic that our team had to come from behind so many times.

00:58:34.040 So we're losing two to one.

00:58:36.000 Uh, I remember like it was yesterday.

00:58:37.900 Jack O'Callaghan must've said it a hundred times in the locker room.

00:58:40.480 There's no way a bunch of fins are keeping us from a gold medal.

00:58:43.260 And he was walking around the locker room and the energy in the room was incredible.

00:58:47.420 And Herb walked in, he stood in front of us.

00:58:49.520 He said, if you lose this game, you'll take it to your effing grave.

00:58:52.140 Then he walked out, he stopped, he pointed his finger and he said, you're effing grave.

00:58:56.740 And he walked out.

00:58:59.020 He was so, you know, to come so far, to work so hard, uh, to accomplish so much, to let

00:59:05.400 it slip away, would have stayed with us forever.

00:59:07.220 And we went out, in my opinion, played the best 20 minutes of hockey.

00:59:11.480 We played all year under the gun, under the biggest moment, the best 20 minutes of hockey

00:59:16.740 we played was the third period against Finland.

00:59:18.700 We scored three goals.

00:59:20.260 We went four to two.

00:59:22.160 We win the whole thing.

00:59:23.580 It was incredible.

00:59:24.400 It's also a testament to the conditioning and all the time you guys put into it.

00:59:27.760 You know, the hard work, right?

00:59:29.240 You, everybody else was dying in the second and third periods and you guys weren't you

00:59:34.080 because you did do the Herbies or the suicides.

00:59:36.860 And he had always said to you, you're, you will not, you won't win on talent.

00:59:40.840 You will not win on talent alone.

00:59:43.720 Conditioning was a big part of our success.

00:59:45.620 The speed of our team, the youth of our team.

00:59:48.240 Um, you know, we, we used our youth as to an advantage.

00:59:51.700 Uh, we, like I said, we were young, youngest Olympic team we had ever put on the ice.

00:59:55.960 It was clearly the youngest Olympic team in the tournament.

00:59:58.240 So our youth, uh, and our conditioning was a big part of our success.

01:00:02.760 And we played four lines, uh, any hockey fans that are listening, we didn't play,

01:00:06.820 you know, one, two, three, four, then one, two, one, two, three.

01:00:09.940 We played all four lines consistently throughout the Olympic games.

01:00:13.180 And that showed again, the depth, uh, and the talent of our team.

01:00:16.940 We clearly, you know, we were clearly a pretty good hockey team.

01:00:20.460 And I don't think people realize that maybe we didn't even realize how good we were,

01:00:24.060 how good we became.

01:00:25.000 Um, and I think that's the joy that I, that I take back 42 years later is realizing

01:00:30.040 that, you know, it wasn't a fluke.

01:00:32.440 Um, it wasn't a miracle.

01:00:33.800 Miracle is a catchy phrase.

01:00:34.840 It sounds nice.

01:00:36.120 Uh, Craig Patrick, our assistant coach said it best.

01:00:38.200 And he said at the end that we deserved what we got.

01:00:41.240 We deserve to win that tournament and win that medal.

01:00:43.580 And I think that again, is important for me and my teammates to realize it was an accomplishment

01:00:49.260 by a group of athletes who believed, you know, we believed in ourselves, but more importantly,

01:00:53.840 we believed in each other.

01:00:55.020 And when you're in that atmosphere, when you're in the locker room, when you've got 20 guys

01:00:58.640 all pulling together, um, and I'm sure teams feel the same way they're pulling together

01:01:03.000 and maybe they don't win because of it.

01:01:04.920 Maybe they don't, maybe they weren't good enough, but they still work together.

01:01:07.940 We had everything going for us.

01:01:09.800 We had a home crowd.

01:01:11.140 We, we had youth.

01:01:12.440 We had speed.

01:01:13.340 We had skill.

01:01:14.800 Our goaltender was playing outstanding hockey.

01:01:16.740 We had some talented players as we saw years later when they went on and, you know, Mike

01:01:21.220 Ramsey, Davey Christian, Neil Broughton played 16, 17, 18 years in the NHL.

01:01:26.660 Kenny Murrow went from the Olympics to four straight Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders.

01:01:30.240 And he was a big part of that, those Stanley Cup teams.

01:01:33.140 And, um, you know, Mark Johnson was Mark Johnson.

01:01:35.840 He was a great player.

01:01:36.740 I'd love to see Mark Johnson in today's NHL, uh, where he wouldn't get hooked and held

01:01:41.480 and beat up like, cause he's, he's not a very big kid, but he was so talented.

01:01:45.220 But again, those are things that I, that I take back and cherish more than anything

01:01:49.060 is we deserved to win that tournament.

01:01:51.600 And it wasn't like lucky.

01:01:54.080 And like I said, miracles, I love Al Michaels and it was a great praise, but, uh, we, we deserve

01:02:00.100 what we got.

01:02:01.060 And we'll play that in one minute, but you, and we talked a little bit about the gold,

01:02:05.620 the gold medal match, which was anticlimactic in a way, because the big, big match was the

01:02:09.420 one right before that.

01:02:10.180 You had to play the Russians.

01:02:11.840 Um, and if you hadn't beaten them, you never would have been in the gold medal match.

01:02:15.940 Uh, you write that the field house in Lake Placid, which is now her Brooks arena.

01:02:20.640 So great.

01:02:21.300 I've been there.

01:02:22.020 It's such a thing to go into it now and just knowing what happened.

01:02:25.200 But back then, 1980 field house in Lake Placid has seats for 8,700 people for the game played

01:02:30.900 on Friday, February 22nd.

01:02:33.200 Every one of them was filled.

01:02:35.080 You talk about how you're in your first game.

01:02:36.620 Not so much.

01:02:37.200 By this point, the country had caught on that.

01:02:39.980 There was this extraordinary group of young men that was doing something incredibly special

01:02:44.060 in Lake Placid.

01:02:45.120 And it was a chance to wave the flag and chant USA and mean it.

01:02:50.220 And whether you were doing it in Lake Placid or where I was not far away up in upstate New

01:02:55.100 York, which is kind of where Lake Placid is, almost closer to Canadian border, um, or where

01:03:00.180 your family was back in, uh, Massachusetts, it, we were together.

01:03:04.800 We felt together.

01:03:05.700 One of the things I love about your book that I didn't know was how your family watched the

01:03:09.120 game.

01:03:09.500 They could, they weren't all in Lake Placid.

01:03:11.040 A lot of them were in that three story house and trying to like taken what they could.

01:03:15.960 And then, you know, by the end they were all together.

01:03:18.540 I'll let you tell it.

01:03:19.860 But before I get to the family, I want to talk about you because for the people who

01:03:24.360 aren't familiar with the game, um, you were behind, of course we weren't, we weren't, we

01:03:30.640 didn't start off winning.

01:03:31.860 And I wonder whether there were like, when was the moment when playing that it dawned on

01:03:37.200 you, we're, we're going to win this game.

01:03:39.880 Like we're at, we actually are winning.

01:03:43.060 We're going to beat these guys.

01:03:44.220 When, when the buzzer sounded at the end, when the game ended is when we realized we

01:03:50.780 can, we were going to win the, you know, I scored with 10 minutes left to go in the

01:03:54.360 game and it was the longest 10 minutes of your life.

01:03:57.000 And that was the last goal to be scored.

01:03:58.540 That was the game winning goal.

01:04:00.040 Right, right.

01:04:01.000 10 minutes left, but it was a long lasting 10 minutes.

01:04:03.500 And it's funny.

01:04:04.540 I've only seen the game twice.

01:04:06.280 I saw it, uh, maybe just before COVID.

01:04:09.460 Um, I was doing a show on ESPN and they showed the game and I got to watch it.

01:04:15.120 And I, I never realized in the last 10 minutes that the Soviets only had about five or six

01:04:20.560 shots on goal, uh, in the last 10 minutes of the game, we really controlled the last

01:04:25.600 10 minutes.

01:04:26.040 And, you know, if you watch the movie miracle, it's save, save, save, save.

01:04:29.440 It's like, we weren't even out on the ice, but when I saw the game, uh, I realized how

01:04:33.780 well we played when we had that lead four to three, but it was a long, it was a long 10

01:04:38.660 minutes.

01:04:38.960 And, uh, uh, you know, you mentioned earlier about the USA, USA, I believe that's where

01:04:44.320 the USA chant started that we hear so often now it's, you know, at USA events, uh, was

01:04:50.240 in Lake Placid and that whole building, the whole building chanting USA, USA, it was, it

01:04:55.800 was deafening.

01:04:56.900 Uh, but when you were on the ice, it's amazing.

01:04:59.680 You don't hear a thing.

01:05:00.680 All you hear was a teammate looking for a pass, a herd looking to change lines.

01:05:04.860 But when you sat on the bench, you could feel the energy in the building.

01:05:08.660 Um, and then later, um, you know, you talked about the USA in the streets, people singing,

01:05:15.080 uh, God bless America, people singing the star spangled banner as they were walking the

01:05:20.260 streets of Lake Placid.

01:05:21.300 It was, it was an incredible, proud feeling and moment for, for our country, but clearly

01:05:27.660 for us as, as players, um, realizing what that moment meant, uh, to so many people.

01:05:33.300 And as I said earlier, in so many different ways and, and we were part of it, we were

01:05:38.380 a big part of it.

01:05:39.100 And again, I think that's what makes our teammates and myself so proud of, of that moment was

01:05:44.340 that it touched people's lives in, in such a positive way.

01:05:47.700 I'm so, I'm such a sucker for these stories, Mike.

01:05:50.060 I've got, I had the chills for like most of the past half hour.

01:05:52.800 Um, let's go to the moment because we were, we finally managed to tie it up, came from behind,

01:05:57.800 tied it up three, three.

01:05:59.540 And again, it's like against this impossible team with this sort of, you know, group of

01:06:03.620 rug rack guys, you know, from middle of nowhere, then East coast, but like working class and

01:06:08.820 didn't nobody born with a silver spoon working together, making it happen against men.

01:06:13.880 It's like boys against men.

01:06:15.300 You know, the Russians were older and they were professional and they were scary and they

01:06:18.080 never smiled.

01:06:19.260 And, um, so it's three, three and Michael Ruzzioni gets the puck and manages to store, score a goal.

01:06:27.540 And I know you didn't, you didn't know you would, you would score.

01:06:31.180 You didn't know it had gone into the net.

01:06:32.740 So how'd you figure it out?

01:06:34.340 I saw the, when the, but I had the puck on my stick.

01:06:37.620 Um, it's amazing how many things can go through your mind in a split second.

01:06:40.660 And I'm not the smartest guy in the world.

01:06:43.100 So, uh, the puck came to me and I had two options.

01:06:46.180 There was a defenseman in front of me.

01:06:48.020 Uh, if he came at me, I was going to pass it by him because David Christian and Neil

01:06:51.920 Brock, Billy Baker and John Harrington were breaking to the net on my left.

01:06:55.500 And if he stayed, I was going to use him as a screen.

01:06:58.860 Uh, he stayed and when it left my stick, I thought it was in, but I thought I might've

01:07:03.180 pulled it a little cause I was going across my body.

01:07:05.960 Um, but then when it in, I saw the crowd behind the goalie jump up in the air.

01:07:11.000 And that's when I knew it went in.

01:07:12.840 Cause I didn't see it go in cause of the defenseman in front of me, but I saw that the, the people

01:07:17.540 behind the net jump up.

01:07:19.140 And then I went, Oh, okay.

01:07:21.140 That went in.

01:07:22.240 Uh, we have the lead four to three right now.

01:07:24.440 So I, that's kind of how I looked at it.

01:07:26.480 We, we had the lead.

01:07:27.960 And, um, then I, I, I've said it and I'll say it enough.

01:07:31.160 If it wasn't for Mark Johnson, he scored two goals in the game.

01:07:34.260 Yeah.

01:07:34.680 Uh, you put us in that position.

01:07:36.340 So like any team, you know, you try to help out your teammates when you can.

01:07:40.280 And I was given an opportunity to, to, to get a chance to score a goal.

01:07:44.180 And I did, and it gave us the lead.

01:07:46.160 And that's kind of how I looked at it until the, the game was over.

01:07:49.480 I kind of sat back and thought, wow, we won and I got the winning goal.

01:07:53.500 That's kind of right.

01:07:54.400 As it turns out, that was the, that was the winning goal that, but as you, as you point

01:07:57.820 out, like kind of, they're all the winning goal.

01:07:59.600 Um, we have that moment when you scored it on tape, uh, and we, we,

01:08:03.980 we butted it together with the, the famous Al Michaels call as the, as the time ticked

01:08:10.260 down.

01:08:10.540 And we got to the end of the game, the end of those interminable 10 minutes, uh, that

01:08:14.760 has now become so iconic.

01:08:16.140 Let's listen.

01:08:18.000 The U S team is depending a little bit too much now on Jim Craig.

01:08:21.340 He's making too many good saves.

01:08:22.820 11 seconds.

01:08:32.660 You've got 10 seconds.

01:08:33.920 The countdown going on right now.

01:08:35.680 Morrow up to show five seconds left in the game.

01:08:39.060 Do you believe in miracles?

01:08:40.820 Yes.

01:08:42.240 Unbelievable.

01:08:47.760 My God.

01:08:49.200 I think that brings tears to my eyes.

01:08:50.880 Now, how does that affect you watching it?

01:08:53.700 Uh, it's just a great feeling.

01:08:55.120 It's a very proud moment, a proud feeling.

01:08:57.240 Um, you know, I know it was 42 years ago and life has moved on, but I guess when you

01:09:02.380 can look back on your life and realize you were part of a moment like that, that, as I

01:09:06.200 said, and I've said it many times over the years, touched people's lives in such a good

01:09:09.820 way.

01:09:10.620 Uh, clearly it was a big moment for me and my family.

01:09:13.100 Uh, and more importantly, it was a, it was a special moment for my teammates and, um,

01:09:19.060 and realizing now 42 years later, it was a special moment in our country that we, we

01:09:24.600 needed something.

01:09:25.220 And then here, here we are a bunch of young kids doing something so special.

01:09:29.540 And again, I've always take great pride in that.

01:09:32.440 It reminds me of, um, Mary Lou Retton told a story of, you know, she, of course, the Olympic

01:09:37.000 gymnast and, and I'm, I want to say it was the 1980 summer game.

01:09:42.900 Wait, could that be?

01:09:43.560 I think it was 84.

01:09:44.960 84.

01:09:45.420 Okay.

01:09:45.600 Yeah.

01:09:45.700 That makes more sense.

01:09:46.740 Um, and she pulled it out and she was amazing and she landed this landing and it was

01:09:51.120 perfection.

01:09:51.600 And I remember hearing the story of an old woman who said to her, you gave us quite a

01:09:57.540 moment, dear.

01:09:59.280 And that's, that's what you guys did.

01:10:01.580 You know, you gave us quite a moment, dear.

01:10:04.460 Um, and back at home in Massachusetts, Winthrop, Massachusetts, they were having quite a moment

01:10:10.180 too.

01:10:10.560 So what was happening?

01:10:11.880 How did, how did your family Jeep, how did everybody consume the game and your old coach

01:10:16.680 and your football coach, all those guys, what were they doing?

01:10:18.780 Well, they were actually, my dad was in Lake Placid, uh, with my mom.

01:10:23.400 Um, and my football coach was there with my cousin and some friends.

01:10:27.180 They rented a Winnebago and drove to Lake Placid and stayed at the campground, uh, not

01:10:31.940 far from, from, uh, the Olympic stadiums.

01:10:35.000 Uh, actually, even the night before the Soviet game, I had a state police officer drove me

01:10:39.080 to the campsite where they were staying.

01:10:40.720 And I had a few beers with my dad and my cousin and my coach and my high school coach and my

01:10:45.460 mom.

01:10:45.920 And I just, you know, kind of relaxed a little the night before the game and, uh, state

01:10:50.680 trooper drove me back to the Olympic village, but, uh, they were at the game and, um, just

01:10:56.600 enjoyed my brothers and sisters were home, uh, for the, this was the Soviet game.

01:11:01.300 My brothers and sisters were home, but the Finland game, my uncle, Tony got a car, his car

01:11:08.560 and drove to watch us play against Finland.

01:11:10.900 And he found their way in the building.

01:11:12.460 Uh, they found tickets.

01:11:14.240 I think they told them who they were.

01:11:15.780 My brother, my uncle, my cousin, uh, drove from, uh, and a friend drove from Winthrop

01:11:21.040 to Lake Placid to watch the Finland game.

01:11:23.360 Uh, but all my sisters and aunts and uncles were in my house or in our house, in my apartment

01:11:28.320 where my parents, where I lived, they were watching the game on television.

01:11:31.800 And I remember my sister telling me after we beat Finland to win the gold medal, people

01:11:36.860 showed up in front of my house from my hometown as singing the star spangled banner, waving

01:11:42.640 the flag, waving an American flag in front of my house.

01:11:45.880 And my sister had to come out onto the porch and just, you know, thank everybody and tell

01:11:50.660 them, okay, you know, we're going to bed.

01:11:53.120 It's time to leave.

01:11:53.980 And so it was just, again, one of those moments, I guess I'm glad I was in Lake Placid, but

01:11:58.980 it would have been really fun to be at my house.

01:12:02.200 Um, and I, I remember, and, and, you know, we win the gold medal on Sunday, Monday, we go

01:12:08.520 to the white house to meet the president.

01:12:10.000 And, and Monday afternoon, I'm flying home on, it's how long ago it was Eastern Airlines,

01:12:15.600 uh, with me, James Silk and Jack O'Callaghan flying back to Boston.

01:12:20.720 Jimmy had gone to Atlanta to sign with the brave, with the, and the three of us were going

01:12:27.760 back to our hometown.

01:12:28.540 And I remember getting in a car and driving from my house from the airport to Winthrop,

01:12:33.340 which is only about a 15 minute ride, 10 minute ride.

01:12:35.680 And the streets were lined with people waving flags.

01:12:39.480 And I'm like, wow, this is a big deal.

01:12:41.260 This is amazing.

01:12:42.260 And then I crossed the bridge into my hometown and went to a small little peninsula town.

01:12:46.900 I've got about 18,000 people.

01:12:48.300 And it had to be 10,000 people at the bridge to meet me.

01:12:52.380 Um, and then I went to my house and I, I remember being on the second floor of my house with my

01:12:58.400 parents and, uh, my sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins.

01:13:02.040 We were all there celebrating this incredible moment.

01:13:05.720 And next thing I found out people were in front of my house, the street, they had state,

01:13:09.620 they had the local police blocking the street off, um, for traffic and people were out there

01:13:14.520 and they were waving flags and singing the anthem.

01:13:16.800 And I went out onto the porch.

01:13:19.540 I felt like the Pope.

01:13:20.820 I was kind of waving to everybody.

01:13:22.320 And then I said, look, I just got home.

01:13:24.240 I want to spend some time with my family.

01:13:26.140 Can everybody just kind of leave?

01:13:27.620 And they left, they all just dispersed.

01:13:29.260 And I remember going to bed and waking up the next morning and my mother's making me breakfast

01:13:34.980 because I was, had to go to New York to do good morning America.

01:13:38.340 And I'm like, what just happened?

01:13:40.780 You know, you win a gold medal on Sunday, Monday, I'm at the white house, Monday, I'm

01:13:45.980 having dinner at home, Tuesday morning, I wake up in my own bed.

01:13:48.940 It was like, did this just happen?

01:13:51.480 It was really kind of eerie.

01:13:52.960 Uh, you, but it was incredible.

01:13:55.680 When you went to the gold medal ceremony before leaving Lake Placid, uh, you gave us

01:14:02.080 another moment, dear.

01:14:03.320 And, uh, it was young Michael Ruzioni, not having been up on the gold medal stand before

01:14:09.660 and inviting the entire team to go up there.

01:14:15.080 And somehow yet another feat was managed.

01:14:17.260 I think Al Michael was like, that was, that was also amazing.

01:14:19.540 Like, how did we get all of our 20 hockey players up on the podium?

01:14:23.720 Um, hold on.

01:14:24.520 I think we have that.

01:14:25.240 Do we have that?

01:14:25.740 That's a soundbite.

01:14:26.920 Uh, yes, we do.

01:14:28.540 Number two.

01:14:29.420 Let's watch.

01:14:35.220 What a moment.

01:14:36.220 Still, the crowd didn't want to go home, did they?

01:14:39.060 They just didn't want to leave.

01:14:40.940 That man right there, I think, symbolizing this entire hockey team.

01:14:44.700 The team captain, 25 years old, Michael Ruzioni.

01:14:49.580 And he called his guys back up there.

01:14:51.340 He wanted to be there by himself.

01:14:53.580 That's amazing.

01:14:54.560 And for the listening audience, you see Mike standing there by himself wearing the gold

01:14:57.800 medal, vehemently saying to the team, get up here, come over here.

01:15:01.860 And they all run and they stormed the podium with you.

01:15:04.560 And it's just the same thing that you've been saying 42 years later.

01:15:08.120 It wasn't just me.

01:15:09.100 It was the whole team.

01:15:10.280 It was a team effort from the beginning straight through.

01:15:13.220 So, you know, you guys came together and then, you know, not to bring the room down, but

01:15:19.220 then it ends.

01:15:21.640 Then it, it ends.

01:15:23.280 And there's gotta be like so much emotion behind the ending too, Mike.

01:15:29.160 Yeah.

01:15:30.320 You know what?

01:15:30.680 When we were on the plane flying back to Boston, Dave Silk, me and Jack, and we were

01:15:36.120 in first class.

01:15:36.780 I think that's the first time I've ever flown first class in my life.

01:15:39.800 And Silky had kind of tears in his eyes.

01:15:41.880 And I looked, I said, Silky, what's wrong?

01:15:44.060 And he looked at me and he goes, it's over.

01:15:46.680 It's ended.

01:15:47.120 And it, that's when it kind of dawned on me that it was, we weren't going to see each

01:15:52.060 other the next day at practice.

01:15:53.960 We weren't going to see each other for months at a, you know, who, who, who even knew if

01:15:58.940 we'd run into each other, I got a chance to see the guys.

01:16:00.920 Cause I was doing broadcasting and traveling quite a bit around the country.

01:16:04.020 So I'd be in cities where they were playing.

01:16:05.780 Cause a lot of the guys turned pro and went to the national hockey league.

01:16:08.540 Some guys went to Europe and, but it was, it was, Silky was right.

01:16:12.460 It's over.

01:16:13.420 It ended.

01:16:14.400 And, uh, that was hard.

01:16:16.240 That was hard for us because we, we, you live together for six months and practice and,

01:16:22.220 you know, train and get on buses and planes.

01:16:24.460 And, uh, that's all you do.

01:16:26.180 And now, you know, like I said, I'm, I'm home in my own house.

01:16:29.580 My mother making me breakfast.

01:16:31.440 It was like, wow, what just happened?

01:16:33.680 Yeah.

01:16:33.840 It's gotta be tough.

01:16:35.360 It's gotta be emotionally a letdown.

01:16:37.680 I mean, I come down, I guess.

01:16:39.060 And, um, I don't know, just beginnings, endings of somebody who was asking me the other day,

01:16:43.920 what, what, what makes you cry?

01:16:45.560 And I tell you almost always endings, endings of things, you know, because it's just a marker

01:16:50.640 of the passage of time.

01:16:51.900 It gets you thinking more existentially and especially endings of wonderful things.

01:16:56.280 Those are the hardest, those are the hardest ones.

01:16:58.680 I want people to know, um, at the, at the end of the 20th century sports illustrated took

01:17:04.400 a look back at the previous hundred years.

01:17:07.060 Uh, and came up with the top sports moments, the top moments in sports history.

01:17:13.740 Uh, number five, Muhammad Ali defeats Joe Frazier, uh, in the thriller in Manila, 1975,

01:17:22.500 four, the greatest game ever played.

01:17:24.560 The Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants in the first NFL championship to go into sudden

01:17:29.880 death overtime.

01:17:30.460 1950, uh, looks like six or eight.

01:17:33.320 Can't read my own writing.

01:17:34.480 Number three, Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in track and field at the Berlin Olympics,

01:17:38.820 1936.

01:17:39.740 Number two, Jackie Robinson breaks major league baseball's color barrier, April 15th, 1947.

01:17:45.900 And the number one moment in sports history, the miracle on ice, the United States defeats

01:17:53.400 the Soviets, Soviets in hockey at the Lake Placid winter Olympics, February 22nd, 1980.

01:18:01.260 What happened after that?

01:18:03.500 What did the players go on to do?

01:18:04.920 What's Mike's life been like since then?

01:18:06.660 And what does he think about the current, uh, resumption of tension between the United

01:18:11.920 States and Russia?

01:18:12.740 So Mike, is it true that we have not won a gold medal in hockey ever since that moment?

01:18:22.380 Yeah, we haven't.

01:18:23.040 We've been close.

01:18:24.220 Um, we've got great players.

01:18:26.020 I mean, we're, I would love to have seen the pros this year in the, in the, uh, in the

01:18:30.560 Olympic games.

01:18:31.220 Unfortunately, they, they didn't go, but, um, we're going to get one sooner or later.

01:18:35.740 I, I, I hope so.

01:18:37.200 Um, it's not going to change anything that we did.

01:18:39.780 I tell people we're not like the Miami Dolphins at 72 that don't want to see an undefeated

01:18:43.820 team.

01:18:44.920 We want gold medals.

01:18:46.160 I want to see our men and our women win gold medals.

01:18:48.400 It just shows the growth of the sport and we're good.

01:18:51.420 I mean, we got some talent.

01:18:53.160 Who's winning all the gold?

01:18:54.180 Is it the Russians again?

01:18:55.200 Or who is it?

01:18:56.500 Uh, Finland won it this year.

01:18:57.900 And the first time, I think they might've been the first time they've ever won a gold

01:19:00.880 medal.

01:19:01.200 So congratulations to them.

01:19:02.780 But the Soviets is still, uh, you know, someone to deal with, but you know, in 1980, the Soviets

01:19:09.080 were one country.

01:19:09.800 So they had a variety of players to choose from now it's broken up into so many different

01:19:14.580 areas.

01:19:14.920 So they're not, they're not as powerful as they used to be, but they're still one of

01:19:18.660 the favorites as well as obviously, you know, Canada and Sweden and the growth of the sport

01:19:23.780 is incredible in all countries.

01:19:26.220 But clearly I think the biggest step of any country that has been made, uh, is the United

01:19:31.680 States.

01:19:32.420 Um, we've got some talented, great young players that play the game now and it's fun to watch.

01:19:37.320 So how, how do you think the miracle on ice changed American hockey?

01:19:43.980 Well, I, I've said this before.

01:19:45.520 I think it gave, um, the national hockey league, uh, finally got to look at Americans as well

01:19:52.080 as college players could play, you know, prior to 1980, you know, us players and college

01:19:56.940 players really weren't given the opportunity.

01:19:58.500 I believe in the national hockey league.

01:20:00.720 Uh, I'll go back to the 1960 team.

01:20:03.000 They had a guy named Bill Cleary and John Maysich out of Minnesota who were unbelievable

01:20:07.160 players, never got a chance to play in the national hockey league.

01:20:10.080 And I think partly because they were Americans and it, it was the Canadian game.

01:20:14.700 Uh, but now it's changed.

01:20:16.320 Um, and I think, you know, I think in 1980, we opened the door, but today's players have

01:20:21.800 clearly knocked it down.

01:20:22.940 Uh, not only our men, our women as well.

01:20:25.360 We watch women's hockey, the growth of that sport and how talented these young ladies are

01:20:30.020 and how good they are.

01:20:31.380 Um, and again, the men that are playing the game, you know, when I played, you were from

01:20:35.260 Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota.

01:20:37.760 Now the, you're from Texas, you're from California.

01:20:41.300 Austin Matthews is maybe one of the best Americans in the game.

01:20:43.820 It's from Phoenix, Arizona.

01:20:44.960 Uh, players are coming out of Florida.

01:20:47.200 St. Louis, uh, is producing some great players.

01:20:50.560 So the game has grown and changed.

01:20:52.900 They're bigger, they're faster, they're stronger.

01:20:55.780 Someone asked me the other day, how the 80 Olympic team would do today against the professional

01:21:00.400 players.

01:21:01.060 And I said, we'd get killed 67 years old.

01:21:05.100 I can't play anymore.

01:21:06.520 But that team that we played on in 1980, um, started, uh, the growth of the sport.

01:21:12.580 But today's players, like I said, guys who played in 84, 88, 92, um, today's players,

01:21:19.000 they're, they're better, they're bigger, they're faster.

01:21:20.840 And it's great to watch the growth.

01:21:23.200 The, a lot of the team did go on to play for the NHL.

01:21:27.400 Um, you mentioned Jim Craig, he was this amazing goalie, but many of them did.

01:21:32.820 You could, you have, first of all, could you, do you think you could have?

01:21:37.000 And second of all, why didn't you?

01:21:39.440 I think I could have played.

01:21:40.660 I, I, I thought about it.

01:21:42.300 Um, I had some offers from the Rangers, the Minnesota, uh, North Stars at the time, I

01:21:46.720 think they were.

01:21:47.380 And then, uh, the Buffalo Sabres had offered me contracts.

01:21:50.960 Um, but I thought it was time to move on.

01:21:53.660 Um, you know, I would have been a good player.

01:21:55.320 I think I would have been an average player, probably three to four year player, four year

01:21:58.740 career, which is probably it for the average player.

01:22:00.980 I think I would have been a good teammate.

01:22:02.800 I think I would have been a good guy in the locker room, a good guy in the community.

01:22:05.620 Um, somebody that I think my teammates would, would like to have had me on the team, but

01:22:11.080 you know, I, again, it's not like today.

01:22:13.140 They didn't say here's 50 million.

01:22:15.500 Not stupid.

01:22:16.580 I think I'll play.

01:22:18.360 Uh, but to me, peace of mind.

01:22:20.500 Um, you know, my dad always told me when I was playing, there's more to life than athletics.

01:22:24.780 And at some point the game ends, um, and I decided at 25, it was time to move on and

01:22:30.200 do something else.

01:22:30.760 And I didn't know what I was going to do.

01:22:32.420 I was going to coach and teach.

01:22:33.460 I was a phys ed major, um, at Boston university.

01:22:36.360 And that was what I wanted to do was be a coach and a teacher.

01:22:38.900 And then I found out this Olympic thing was a pretty big deal.

01:22:41.860 So my life took a, took a different, a different turn, uh, in many ways, but, um, I would

01:22:48.980 have been very happy coaching and teaching and, and, uh, obviously things, things, things

01:22:53.660 went in a different direction for me and I'm doing a variety of different things.

01:22:56.720 I still do a lot of motivational speaking.

01:22:58.680 Uh, I've been working at Boston university now, 28 years.

01:23:02.080 Um, have a great opportunity to work at a great school with some great student athletes

01:23:06.020 and students as well.

01:23:07.740 Um, get to play a little more golf than I ever would have thought.

01:23:10.520 Cause I didn't play golf until after the Olympics.

01:23:12.300 So, um, you know, things, things have been great and I wouldn't change anything.

01:23:16.960 Um, uh, you know, win or lose, I, I'm still living in the town that I grew up in.

01:23:21.540 And I, uh, I've been with my wife and I was, uh, 38 years married and we dated for 10 or

01:23:26.740 12 before.

01:23:27.340 So, uh, you know, she kind of knows my act.

01:23:29.800 She grew up four houses from me.

01:23:31.760 Um, and, um, you know, I never thought an athletic event should change who you are as a person.

01:23:37.800 It's clearly given me opportunities to do things I never would have ever done, but it's important

01:23:43.000 that I, it hasn't changed me.

01:23:44.540 And I'm very happy with who I am and what I've done over the last 42 years.

01:23:48.660 What do you, what do you make about the amount of money now in sports?

01:23:54.080 You know, I mean, we're talking about my husband about it.

01:23:56.800 We love to watch like the, the March madness, you know, the NCAA final four.

01:24:01.660 So fun.

01:24:02.900 Not so much when you watch the professional NBA, it's like, you know, they're all gazillionaires.

01:24:07.260 They just don't seem to have the same excitement for the game or, you know, just the same gusto

01:24:13.000 that the college players have.

01:24:14.680 You could see, they really want it.

01:24:16.020 I don't know, I, somehow I feel like money, that amount of money in sports can, can be,

01:24:21.940 if not corrupting, it can just sort of cast a, a pall over the game for the spectators.

01:24:28.000 Yeah, I think it's, it's clearly changed.

01:24:30.140 I think people see, you know, athletes making multi, you know, 10 million a year, 20 million

01:24:35.340 a year.

01:24:35.960 It's, um, I guess disheartening to the, that working class guy or girl that gets up in the

01:24:40.920 morning and works nine to five and tries to make a living.

01:24:43.280 But, you know, that's, that's the sport we're in that people pay to play.

01:24:47.060 People pay to watch them play.

01:24:48.860 Um, they're clearly making money.

01:24:50.480 Owners are making money.

01:24:51.480 And, you know, that's the, the, the, the American way.

01:24:54.740 It's just the way it is.

01:24:56.300 Man, I can't begrudge anybody a salary that somebody wants to give them millions of dollars,

01:25:00.220 which is as a spectator, I feel like, eh, I don't know.

01:25:03.960 I feel like you can see the, the gusto go out of the sport.

01:25:09.140 I don't, I don't, I'm not a sporting event guy.

01:25:11.880 I'm, you're, you're more apt to find me down the golf club, watching the game on TV than

01:25:15.480 you are at an event.

01:25:17.160 Um, I enjoy that aspect of watching it, um, versus going to a stadium and sitting, you

01:25:23.240 know, eight miles away from the field and try to watch what's going on, but people go

01:25:26.800 and people support their teams.

01:25:28.420 And that's great to see, but it, it's again, it's just the way it is.

01:25:31.500 And these athletes, uh, uh, good luck to them.

01:25:34.640 I hope they do the right thing with their money.

01:25:36.360 They're making, I hope they're, they're good people.

01:25:38.340 I hope they're good neighbors.

01:25:39.220 They're good friends.

01:25:39.940 They, they give back.

01:25:41.060 Hopefully these athletes that make this money, give back to their community or to various

01:25:45.300 charitable organizations.

01:25:46.580 I think it's important to do that, to help others and, uh, you know, good, good, good for

01:25:51.940 them.

01:25:52.220 And they're, that's just the business they're in and they're, they're awfully good at it and

01:25:55.960 they're getting paid for it.

01:25:56.920 So I know post, uh, the big win, you introduced Ronald Reagan at a banquet.

01:26:03.740 You went over to Frank Sinatra's house and met with him and Tony Bennett.

01:26:08.300 Um, you had the chance to rub a lot of celebrity elbows, but as you say, decided to live your

01:26:14.420 life humbly with your family, uh, in your hometown, assistant coach and coaching.

01:26:19.860 Um, Herb Brooks gone too soon.

01:26:23.080 Uh, it's so sad that he died too young in a car accident.

01:26:28.340 Uh, he had, he went on to become the coast coach of the Rangers in 1981, but he died in

01:26:33.220 a car accident when his truck, his minivan swerved across the highway in Minnesota and

01:26:37.300 rolled over killing him at just 66 years old.

01:26:41.640 Uh, you write in your book that his funeral held at the cathedral of St.

01:26:45.620 Paul, 2,500 people came to say goodbye, players, coaches, trainers, managers, college, high school,

01:26:50.820 the NHL, and so on international hockey, even the Olympics, of course.

01:26:55.500 And, um, as the movie said, miracle at the end, uh, it ended with coach Herb Brooks died

01:27:01.760 before seeing the movie.

01:27:02.820 The film was dedicated to him with the following quote, he never saw it.

01:27:08.000 He lived it.

01:27:09.580 So what do you make of Herb Brooks now with the benefit of all this time gone and his impact

01:27:15.840 on the sport?

01:27:17.400 Well, I think clearly is, you know, he was a generational coach.

01:27:22.220 I mean, what he did in 1980, the players are playing that way today.

01:27:26.060 Uh, the style of hockey that we played in 1980 was new to, to everybody.

01:27:31.020 It was, you know, something that, uh, nobody even thought the United States would, could

01:27:35.440 play that style, which is a European game, which is a very different style without getting

01:27:39.200 into the whole thing.

01:27:39.960 But, but Herb was creative.

01:27:41.780 Herb was brilliant.

01:27:43.140 Um, he was a great coach.

01:27:45.300 He was a great motivator.

01:27:46.320 He was, uh, uh, just, uh, he was a great man.

01:27:48.540 He was a great father, uh, great grandfather.

01:27:51.420 Uh, people had tremendous respect for her as we, as a team did.

01:27:54.960 And he was so, so innovative.

01:27:57.180 Uh, like I said, he was, uh, he was ahead of his time.

01:27:59.640 Yeah.

01:28:00.060 And, um, do you, um, we lost a great coach and a great person.

01:28:03.940 What do you think about now?

01:28:05.340 I mean, now we're involved in this.

01:28:07.360 We're not directly involved, but we're obviously arming the Ukrainians in the cold war, which

01:28:12.120 ended, um, has come back in some, some form.

01:28:16.980 I mean, it's a hot war between Russia and Ukraine, but obviously we're having tensions

01:28:20.140 again as well.

01:28:21.100 And the American people are trying to size up the Russian people and understand whether they're

01:28:23.960 behind Putin or they're not.

01:28:25.640 What do you, how does it remind you, if at all, of what we went through back then?

01:28:29.280 It's the most frustrating, mind boggling thing that, that I watch.

01:28:34.120 Um, I'm not a real political guy.

01:28:35.980 I mean, I do follow politics.

01:28:37.260 I'm, you know, I got involved already and got in trouble just by knowing, uh, President

01:28:42.000 Trump, which is another story.

01:28:43.880 But, uh, you got up on a stage.

01:28:46.460 He asked you to go up on a stage at a, at a rally.

01:28:48.740 You guys were there for something else and you guys did it.

01:28:51.500 And then everybody's like, you look, you're Trump supporters.

01:28:53.400 You're like, we're being good sports.

01:28:54.660 And of course you can't have anything to do with Trump.

01:28:56.680 Oh, it was, it was absolutely the hate mail, the letters I got, the phone calls I received.

01:29:01.140 It was mind boggling to me.

01:29:03.120 Uh, whether you like the president or don't like the president, he's the president.

01:29:06.220 You support him.

01:29:06.900 Uh, as, as we're doing now with, with, you know, by president Biden, who I know very well,

01:29:11.960 I was with him for a week at the Olympic games in Vancouver when he was the vice president.

01:29:16.420 But, you know, this whole thing, what's going on, I have, I just can't fathom the world,

01:29:21.960 not just the United States, the world letting this happen, letting these innocent people

01:29:28.520 die.

01:29:29.020 Young kids, young boys, young girls.

01:29:30.800 Um, you know, just walk in the streets, a bomb goes off.

01:29:34.760 I, I don't get it.

01:29:35.880 I don't understand it.

01:29:36.860 I can't see that people are allowing this to happen.

01:29:40.640 It's frustrating.

01:29:41.500 It's, it's embarrassing.

01:29:42.560 Um, you kind of, you know, you get a little pissed off that, that, that we're allowing

01:29:48.400 this to happen, not just the United States.

01:29:50.400 And I know we're helping, we're trying, but everybody else to, to, to end this thing,

01:29:54.540 stop this thing.

01:29:55.620 This is the 20th century.

01:29:57.140 This stuff shouldn't be going on.

01:29:58.760 I don't get it.

01:29:59.960 21st now.

01:30:01.180 Don't understand it.

01:30:02.540 I never will.

01:30:03.980 You know, the, um, the feeling in the country has changed when it comes, not just to the

01:30:08.460 Russians, but to America and the feeling of patriotism that you guys helped us enjoy has

01:30:15.840 dissipated too.

01:30:16.820 Uh, just, here's just one poll, uh, by Axios in, uh, it was done last year, July of 2021.

01:30:24.620 63% of Americans say they would feel a very positive reaction, uh, if they saw the American

01:30:29.900 flag displayed, 63% of those, they break it down by age over 70% of over 45 year olds would

01:30:37.240 feel very positive, but just 39% of 18 to 24 year olds feel very positive when they see

01:30:43.720 the flag.

01:30:44.120 And we see that reflected in lots of, in lots of polls, just a waning patriotism and this

01:30:49.860 belief that America, instead of being uniquely special might actually be uniquely awful.

01:30:55.760 What do you make of it?

01:30:57.060 That's, that's, that's, again, I can use the word embarrassing.

01:31:01.000 People feel that way.

01:31:02.180 Um, you know, again, I'm old school, you know, my dad was a Marine.

01:31:05.860 Uh, my, my, my uncle Tony won a silver star.

01:31:09.060 Uh, my son's a fireman.

01:31:10.600 My son-in-law is a police officer.

01:31:12.520 My nephew is a U S marshal.

01:31:14.840 Um, you know, my daughter's a social worker.

01:31:17.760 Uh, I have relatives who are teachers, educators, firemen, policemen.

01:31:23.220 Um, I take great pride in that.

01:31:25.020 And, and it frustrates me, uh, go live somewhere else.

01:31:29.140 You don't like it here, go somewhere else and live.

01:31:31.640 Uh, this is the greatest country in the world.

01:31:33.160 And yeah, we get challenges and there are things that we have to deal with and face, but,

01:31:36.980 um, I, I, I'd rather do it here and, and, and, and live in this country than try to do it

01:31:42.900 somewhere else.

01:31:43.440 So to those people who don't respect the flag, who don't respect, um, you know, our anthem,

01:31:49.980 um, if you don't like it, like I said, go, go somewhere else to live.

01:31:52.880 And I'm sure if somebody is going to send me a letter and say, you know, freedom, you

01:31:55.860 get to say what you want.

01:31:56.780 And I get it.

01:31:57.340 I understand it.

01:31:58.600 Um, but sometimes I think you got to take a stance.

01:32:01.840 And to me, that stance is, uh, this is the greatest country in the world.

01:32:05.460 And so many people get unbelievable opportunities that, that we live here.

01:32:10.040 We're going to have challenges there.

01:32:11.560 Not everybody's going to get along.

01:32:12.800 That's life that, that it works that way, but, um, respect people, respect their opinions.

01:32:18.960 I get a lot of friends that, you know, I don't agree with all the time, but they're still

01:32:22.060 my friends because I respect who they are and what they, what they're about.

01:32:25.440 And I think we've lost that value.

01:32:27.160 I think we've lost sight of how important it is to, to respect people and who they are and

01:32:31.600 what they are.

01:32:32.600 And, and, and like I said to you earlier, uh, you know, you put a USA Jersey on, there

01:32:37.100 is no greater feeling in the world.

01:32:38.760 You know, it's not Boston.

01:32:39.980 It's not Chicago.

01:32:40.800 It's not a world series or a super bowl.

01:32:42.560 You put a Jersey on, it says USA across the front.

01:32:44.940 You're representing your country.

01:32:45.920 And that's, that's the ultimate honor.

01:32:47.560 I think you can get, um, it's frustrating that people don't see that sometimes, but I,

01:32:52.400 I clearly do.

01:32:53.460 And I, I get a little frustrated by people and, you know, their reactions.

01:32:56.900 And like I said, when, when we did that with, uh, with president Trump, we have tremendous

01:33:01.500 respect for the president and the office of the presidency, whether you like him or don't

01:33:05.460 like him is irrelevant.

01:33:06.480 He's in charge.

01:33:07.460 He's the guy that we look forward to, that we look towards, uh, that we voted for.

01:33:12.500 So whether you voted for him or didn't vote for him, Joe Biden, I didn't vote for Joe

01:33:15.680 Biden.

01:33:16.120 He's in charge.

01:33:17.060 He's the president, respect the office and respect our flag and respect our anthem.

01:33:21.720 That's what I'm all about.

01:33:22.860 And you can agree or disagree.

01:33:25.660 That's fine.

01:33:26.360 I respect your opinion, but that's not the way I was brought up and the things and the

01:33:31.320 values that my parents taught me.

01:33:34.580 Mike Arruzzioni, it was no miracle, but it was indeed a moment.

01:33:39.600 And I know I speak on behalf of millions when I say, thank you.

01:33:42.640 Thank you for it.

01:33:43.280 Thank you for living the values that you've discussed and for always being willing to

01:33:47.700 remind us of what made that team and what made that moment so special and how it went

01:33:52.640 beyond the hockey sticks.

01:33:53.920 It went to what was in your hearts and what was in your character.

01:33:56.920 Uh, it's an honor to meet you.

01:33:58.020 Thank you for being here.

01:33:59.440 Thank you for having me on and, uh, enjoy the rest of the, uh, the show of the day or

01:34:04.080 whatever's going on.

01:34:05.160 But thank you for having me.

01:34:06.240 That was fun.

01:34:07.480 All the best.

01:34:08.700 Uh, listen, thank you for joining us today.

01:34:10.680 Really enjoyed meeting him tomorrow.

01:34:12.580 We're going to have some interesting guests here, including Peter Schweitzer, who literally

01:34:17.060 wrote the book on how American elites get rich, helping China win.

01:34:23.040 Uh, lots to discuss.

01:34:24.180 And then in the meantime, go ahead and download the show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher

01:34:28.500 and subscribe if you wouldn't mind at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

01:34:32.080 Thanks for listening.

01:34:33.000 You guys will see you tomorrow.

01:34:36.060 Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show.

01:34:38.040 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - April 18, 2022

Patriotism, Perseverance, and Beating the Russians, with ＂Miracle on Ice＂ Team Captain Mike Eruzione ｜ Ep. 302

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