The "Miracle on Ice" was an ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. It was played between the hosting United States and the Soviet Union on February 22, 1980, during the medal round of the men's ice hockey tournament. Although the Soviet Union was a four-time defending gold medalist and heavily favored, the United States achieved an upset victory, winning 4–3. The Soviet Union had won the gold medal in five of the six previous Winter Olympic Games, and were the heavy favorite to win another gold in Lake Placid. Olympic rules at the time prohibited professional athletes from competing, but the Soviet government circumvented this by employing professional athletes in symbolic university or military positions, allowing them to focus full-time on sport. As a result, the Soviet team consisted of veteran players with significant experience in international play. By contrast, the United States team, led by head coach Herb Brooks, was composed mostly of amateur players; only four players had any experience beyond that level, and even then all four had only minimal, minor-league experience. In addition, the United States had the youngest team in the tournament and in U.S. national team history. In the group stage, both the Soviet and American teams were undefeated; the U.S. achieved several surprising results, including a 2–2 draw against Sweden, and a 7–3 upset victory over second-place favorite Czechoslovakia.
For the first game in the medal round, the Americans played the Soviets. Finishing the first period tied at 2–2, and the Soviets leading 3–2 following the second, the U.S. team scored two more goals to take their first lead midway in the third and final period, then held out to win by a score of 4–3. Two days later, the U.S. secured the gold medal by defeating Finland 4–2 in their final game, while the Soviet Union claimed the silver medal with a dominant 9–2 victory over Sweden. Mark Johnson, who led the Americans in scoring, was named tournament MVP. Defenseman Ken Morrow went on to win a Stanley Cup with New York Islanders later that year, becoming the first American-born player to win a Stanley Cup and an Olympic gold medal in the same year.
The victory became one of the most iconic moments of the Games and in U.S. sports. Equally well-known was the television call of the final seconds of the game by Al Michaels for ABC, in which he declared: "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" The team was honored as Sports Illustrated's Sportsmen of the Year and the Associated Press Athlete of the Year in 1980. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named the "Miracle on Ice" the top sports moment of the 20th century. As part of its centennial celebration in 2008, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) named the "Miracle on Ice" as the top international ice hockey story of the past 100 years. In 2025, the United States Congress recognized the members of the team with the Congressional Gold Medal.
The Soviet Union entered the Lake Placid games as the heavy favorite, having won four consecutive gold medals dating back to the 1964 games. In the four Olympics following their 1960 bronze-medal finish at Squaw Valley, Soviet teams had gone 27–1–1 (wins-losses-ties) and outscored their opponents 175–44. In head-to-head matchups against the United States, the cumulative score over that period was 28–7. The Soviet team had not lost a game in Olympic play since 1968.
The Soviets were led by legendary players in world ice hockey, such as Boris Mikhailov (a top line right winger and team captain), Vladislav Tretiak (the consensus best goaltender in the world at the time), the speedy and skilled Valeri Kharlamov, and talented, dynamic players such as defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov and forwards Vladimir Krutov and Sergei Makarov. From that team, Tretiak, Kharlamov, Makarov, and Fetisov were eventually enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Many of the Soviet players had gained attention in the Summit Series eight years before and, in contrast to the American players, were de facto professionals with long histories of international play, employed by industrial firms or military organizations for the sole purpose of playing hockey on their organization's team. Western nations protested the Soviet Union's use of full-time athletes, as they were forced to use amateur (mainly college) players due to the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) amateur-only policy. The situation even led to Canadian withdrawal from the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, but the IOC did not change the rules until the late 1980s.
U.S. head coach Herb Brooks held tryouts in Colorado Springs in the summer of 1979. Of the 20 players who eventually made the final Olympic roster, Buzz Schneider was the only one returning from the 1976 Olympic team. Nine players had played under Brooks at the University of Minnesota (including Rob McClanahan, Mike Ramsey, and Phil Verchota), while four more were from Boston University (Dave Silk, Jack O'Callahan, goaltender Jim Craig, and team captain Mike Eruzione). As Boston University and Minnesota were perennial rivals in college hockey (for instance, they had faced off in a bitter NCAA national semifinal in 1976), Brooks' selection process was a 300-question psychological test that would give him insight on how every player would react under stress; anyone who refused to take the test would automatically fail. Brooks had to select from 68 players who started the tryout. Brooks wanted to include Joe Mullen, a future three-time Stanley Cup winner and Hockey Hall of Fame inductee, on the team, but his father was ill, and Mullen instead signed a professional contract with the St. Louis Blues to support his family financially.
The average age of the U.S. team was 21 years, making it the youngest team in U.S. history to play in the Olympics (in addition to being the youngest team in the 1980 Olympic tournament), but Brooks knew the limits of every player. As forward John Harrington said, "He knew exactly where to quit. He'd push you right to the limit where you were ready to say, 'I've had it, I'm throwing it in' — and then he'd back off." Brooks continued the organization by campaigning for the players' selection of Eruzione as the captain, and Craig had been the goalie for him in the 1979 World Championship tournament. Assistant coach Craig Patrick had played with Brooks on the 1967 U.S. national team.
The Soviet and American teams were natural rivals due to the decades-old Cold War. In addition, U.S. President Jimmy Carter was considering boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics, which were to be held in Moscow, in protest of the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On February 9, the same day the American and Soviet teams met in an exhibition game in New York City, U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance denounced the impending Moscow Games at an IOC meeting. President Carter eventually decided in favor of the boycott.
In exhibitions that year, Soviet club teams went 5–3–1 against National Hockey League (NHL) teams and, a year earlier, the Soviet national team had defeated a team of NHL All-Stars two games to one (by scores of 2–4, 5–4, and 6–0) to win the Challenge Cup. In 1979–80, virtually all the top North American players were Canadians, although the number of U.S.-born professional players had been on the rise throughout the 1970s. The 1980 U.S. Olympic team featured several young players who were regarded as highly promising, and some had signed contracts to play in the NHL immediately after the tournament.
In September 1979, before the Olympics, the American team started exhibition play. They played a total of 61 games in five months against teams from Europe and the United States. Through these games, Brooks instilled a European style of play in his team, emphasizing wide-open play with sufficient body contact. He believed it would be the only way for the Americans to compete with the Soviets. From the start of the exhibition games, he conducted the team through skating wind sprints consisting of end line to blue line and back, then end line to red line and back, then end line to far blue line and back, and finally end line all the way down and back. Some of the players took to calling these "Herbies". On September 17, the team played to a 3–3 tie in Norway. Believing the team wasn't putting up sufficient effort, an angry Brooks had them skate Herbies after the game and, after a while, arena custodians turned the lights off and the Herbies continued in the dark. Brooks skated the team for over an hour. The two teams played again the next night, with the U.S. winning handily 9–0. Near the end of the exhibition season, Brooks, because of subpar play, threatened to cut Eruzione (the captain) from the team and replace Craig with Steve Janaszak as the starting goaltender, although he had supported them throughout.