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The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team Spiral-Bound | October 25, 2005
Wayne Coffey, Jim Craig (Foreword by), Ken Morrow (Afterword by)
$18.79
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The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team
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The true story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and the Miracle on Ice, which Sports Illustrated called the greatest moment in sports history—with a new afterword by Ken Morrow for the fortieth anniversary of the Miracle on Ice
“An unvarnished and captivating read.”—Parade
Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach. Their “Miracle on Ice” has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable.
Wayne Coffey casts a fresh eye on this seminal sports event, giving readers an ice-level view of the amateurs who took on a Russian hockey juggernaut at the height of the Cold War. He details the unusual chemistry of the Americans—formulated by their fiercely determined coach, Herb Brooks—and seamlessly weaves portraits of the boys with the fluid action of the game itself. Coffey also traces the paths of the players and coaches since their stunning victory, examining how the Olympic events affected their lives.
Told with warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, The Boys of Winter is an intimate, perceptive portrayal of one Friday night in Lake Placid and the enduring power of the extraordinary.February 22, 1980 was the 14th day of the XIII Winter Olympics, and the occasion of perhaps the greatest upset in the annals of sport. In a semifinal hockey match, the United States defeated the Soviet Union, 4-3, scoring two third-period goals to do it. "Do you believe in miracles?" Al Michaels asked in the final moments of the ABC telecast. "Yes!" He answered himself as the horn sounded. The United States was not supposed to have even a chance against the mighty Soviets. Weeks before, when the teams met in a pre-Olympic exhibition in Madison Square Garden in NYC, the Soviets crushed the U.S., 10-3. The nineteen U.S. players were college-age kids who had never competed internationally, let alone at the highest levels of the sport. With an average age of twenty-two, they were the youngest Olympic hockey team ever assembled. And they were up against the world's all-stars: since 1956, the Soviets had won the gold medal in hockey every year but 1960, when the U.S. team upset them. Herb Brooks, the architect of the 1980 magic, was the last player cut from that 1960 team.
In the spirit of John McPhee's compelling Levels of the Game, Wayne Coffey uses the USA/USSR game as the narrative spine of THE BOYS OF WINTER, alternating the riveting 1980 drama with the untold stories of these Olympic icons, the Soviets, and the forces that brought them together on a sheet of ice in Lake Placid. Though several books have been written on the 1980 team over the years, THE BOYS OF WINTER will bring a scope, substance, and vividness to the event that has never been approached. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews, Coffey will take readers inside the perspective of the U.S. heroes and the devastated Soviets, the latter of which is an aspect of the game that has gone almost totally unexplored. What was life like for the players upon their return, after their unfathomable loss?
THE BOYS OF WINTER is an evocative treatment of a time and place, of a moment that changed how people felt about themselves and their country. The sheer improbability of the outcome was, to be sure, a major reason why the game stirred the outpouring of emotion that it did. But it was the sociopolitical backdrop of the games that ultimately turned a hockey game into a transcendent athletic moment. The U.S. was in deep distress in 1980, beset by feelings of impotence and ineffectiveness abroad, economic trouble at home, a hostage crisis in Iran moving into its fourth month, and a fresh Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The word people used to talk about the American psyche was malaise.
Some historians have suggested that the defeat was the first symbolic crack in the Soviet monolith, a harbinger of the systemic woes that would eventually result in the dissolution of the nation. Whether that is true or not, it's undeniable how politically charged the Olympic Games were two decades ago. With the emergence of the Soviet Union in the post-war era, the games had become much more than a prestigious international competition. They had taken on the feel of a five-ring grudge match, capitalism on one side, communism on the other, sports with a thick overlay of goods vs. evil. USA 4, USSR, 3.
“An unvarnished and captivating read.”—Parade
Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach. Their “Miracle on Ice” has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable.
Wayne Coffey casts a fresh eye on this seminal sports event, giving readers an ice-level view of the amateurs who took on a Russian hockey juggernaut at the height of the Cold War. He details the unusual chemistry of the Americans—formulated by their fiercely determined coach, Herb Brooks—and seamlessly weaves portraits of the boys with the fluid action of the game itself. Coffey also traces the paths of the players and coaches since their stunning victory, examining how the Olympic events affected their lives.
Told with warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, The Boys of Winter is an intimate, perceptive portrayal of one Friday night in Lake Placid and the enduring power of the extraordinary.February 22, 1980 was the 14th day of the XIII Winter Olympics, and the occasion of perhaps the greatest upset in the annals of sport. In a semifinal hockey match, the United States defeated the Soviet Union, 4-3, scoring two third-period goals to do it. "Do you believe in miracles?" Al Michaels asked in the final moments of the ABC telecast. "Yes!" He answered himself as the horn sounded. The United States was not supposed to have even a chance against the mighty Soviets. Weeks before, when the teams met in a pre-Olympic exhibition in Madison Square Garden in NYC, the Soviets crushed the U.S., 10-3. The nineteen U.S. players were college-age kids who had never competed internationally, let alone at the highest levels of the sport. With an average age of twenty-two, they were the youngest Olympic hockey team ever assembled. And they were up against the world's all-stars: since 1956, the Soviets had won the gold medal in hockey every year but 1960, when the U.S. team upset them. Herb Brooks, the architect of the 1980 magic, was the last player cut from that 1960 team.
In the spirit of John McPhee's compelling Levels of the Game, Wayne Coffey uses the USA/USSR game as the narrative spine of THE BOYS OF WINTER, alternating the riveting 1980 drama with the untold stories of these Olympic icons, the Soviets, and the forces that brought them together on a sheet of ice in Lake Placid. Though several books have been written on the 1980 team over the years, THE BOYS OF WINTER will bring a scope, substance, and vividness to the event that has never been approached. Drawing upon hundreds of hours of interviews, Coffey will take readers inside the perspective of the U.S. heroes and the devastated Soviets, the latter of which is an aspect of the game that has gone almost totally unexplored. What was life like for the players upon their return, after their unfathomable loss?
THE BOYS OF WINTER is an evocative treatment of a time and place, of a moment that changed how people felt about themselves and their country. The sheer improbability of the outcome was, to be sure, a major reason why the game stirred the outpouring of emotion that it did. But it was the sociopolitical backdrop of the games that ultimately turned a hockey game into a transcendent athletic moment. The U.S. was in deep distress in 1980, beset by feelings of impotence and ineffectiveness abroad, economic trouble at home, a hostage crisis in Iran moving into its fourth month, and a fresh Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The word people used to talk about the American psyche was malaise.
Some historians have suggested that the defeat was the first symbolic crack in the Soviet monolith, a harbinger of the systemic woes that would eventually result in the dissolution of the nation. Whether that is true or not, it's undeniable how politically charged the Olympic Games were two decades ago. With the emergence of the Soviet Union in the post-war era, the games had become much more than a prestigious international competition. They had taken on the feel of a five-ring grudge match, capitalism on one side, communism on the other, sports with a thick overlay of goods vs. evil. USA 4, USSR, 3.
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 304 pages
ISBN-10: 1400047668
Item Weight: 0.5 lbs
Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8.0 inches
“A wonderfully detailed enrichment of the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century. Wayne Coffey’s fresh perspective artfully takes a twenty-five-year-old story and advances it to the present with an enhanced appreciation of that stunning, breathtaking, still too-amazing-to-believe accomplishment.” —Al Michaels
“The 1980 U.S. hockey team has been mythologized in print and on screen for almost twenty-five years. Wayne Coffey’s The Boys of Winter goes much deeper than that and, for the first time, gives us a clear picture of who these remarkable boys—and men—were . . . and are. It is a very fine book.” —John Feinstein
“I celebrated my fifteenth birthday on the very day that the ‘Boys of Winter’ beat the Russians in Lake Placid. Wayne Coffey brilliantly weaves the behind-the-scenes story that amplifies how improbable this ‘miracle’ really was.” —Pat LaFontaine, NHL Hall of Famer
“The great stories can always be retold, but when they are retold with the emotion, the muscular prose, the freshness that Coffey brings to the Miracle on Ice, they seem new.” —Robert Lipsyte, New York Times, and author of The Contender
“No matter how many times I hear the story of the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s heroics in Lake Placid in 1980, I want to hear it again. It is allegory, fable, wonderful drama. Now Wayne Coffey comes to the campfire to tell the tale again, raising the requisite lumps in the requisite throats, adding new details to the familiar pictures. Very nice work. Very nice, indeed.” —Leigh Montville, author of Ted Williams
“First came the Hollywood version of the Miracle on Ice. Now comes the real story, rich in context and texture, as only a journalist and author like Wayne Coffey can report it and tell it.” —Harvey Araton, New York Times
“Meticulously researched, entertaining, and enlightening as an example of sportswriting and social history, Wayne Coffey has re-created the event that would eventually put the Cold War on ice. The Boys of Winter is the definitive book on a defining moment in American culture.” —Jay Atkinson, author of Ice Time
“Wayne Coffey re-creates the excitement of the unlikely run the U.S. men’s hockey team made through the 1980 Olympics . . . an adventure that seems even more unlikely now than it felt twenty-five years ago.” —Bill Littlefield, host of NPR’s Only a Game and author of Fall Classics
“The 1980 U.S. hockey team has been mythologized in print and on screen for almost twenty-five years. Wayne Coffey’s The Boys of Winter goes much deeper than that and, for the first time, gives us a clear picture of who these remarkable boys—and men—were . . . and are. It is a very fine book.” —John Feinstein
“I celebrated my fifteenth birthday on the very day that the ‘Boys of Winter’ beat the Russians in Lake Placid. Wayne Coffey brilliantly weaves the behind-the-scenes story that amplifies how improbable this ‘miracle’ really was.” —Pat LaFontaine, NHL Hall of Famer
“The great stories can always be retold, but when they are retold with the emotion, the muscular prose, the freshness that Coffey brings to the Miracle on Ice, they seem new.” —Robert Lipsyte, New York Times, and author of The Contender
“No matter how many times I hear the story of the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s heroics in Lake Placid in 1980, I want to hear it again. It is allegory, fable, wonderful drama. Now Wayne Coffey comes to the campfire to tell the tale again, raising the requisite lumps in the requisite throats, adding new details to the familiar pictures. Very nice work. Very nice, indeed.” —Leigh Montville, author of Ted Williams
“First came the Hollywood version of the Miracle on Ice. Now comes the real story, rich in context and texture, as only a journalist and author like Wayne Coffey can report it and tell it.” —Harvey Araton, New York Times
“Meticulously researched, entertaining, and enlightening as an example of sportswriting and social history, Wayne Coffey has re-created the event that would eventually put the Cold War on ice. The Boys of Winter is the definitive book on a defining moment in American culture.” —Jay Atkinson, author of Ice Time
“Wayne Coffey re-creates the excitement of the unlikely run the U.S. men’s hockey team made through the 1980 Olympics . . . an adventure that seems even more unlikely now than it felt twenty-five years ago.” —Bill Littlefield, host of NPR’s Only a Game and author of Fall Classics
Wayne Coffey is an award-winning sportswriter for the New York Daily News and the author of Winning Sounds Like This, among other books. He lives in the Hudson Valley region of New York.