The Making of a Miracle

November 25, 2019
Mike Eruzione, who scored the game-winning goal for the U.S. hockey team against its vaunted Russian opponents in the 1980 Winter Olympics, traces his path to glory and his charmed life afterward in this buoyant, earnest memoir. Growing up in working-class Winthrop, Mass., Eruzione’s first pair of skates were his sister’s—complete with pom-poms. His hockey skills were overlooked until the end of high school, when Boston University coach Jack Parker discovered Eruzione while refereeing the high school’s summer hockey game. Then, in another stroke of luck, Eruzione, who went on to play for BU, played few enough games in the minor leagues to maintain his amateur status, which qualified him for the Olympic team. Eruzione comes across as eminently down to earth, whether it’s reminiscing about his loving and chaotic childhood household (“Three floors, no doors”) or trying to decipher stern Olympic head coach Herb Brooks, whose relentless, cerebral coaching style prohibited intimacy (“I wish I had been able to know him better than I did”). Eruzione recalls what seemed to be a simpler time—when major news came through television, newspapers, or word of mouth, and when the U.S. Olympic team was comprised of scrappy amateurs. This heartwarming memoir will delight more than just hockey fans.

January 1, 2020

American hockey fans love the story of the "Miracle on Ice" from the 1980 Olympics, where the U.S. team beat the perennial champions from the then Soviet Union and went on to win gold. Unlike the NHL star-studded Olympic teams of the past 20 years, the 1980 team (like the team from the most recent Winter games), comprised of college players and those from the amateur leagues. This work by former NHL star Eruzione and journalist Boudette tells of that season. As team captain and the player who scored the game-winning goal, Eruzione was a vital part of the "Miracle on Ice," which, in turn, shaped his future. In addition to his miracle story, the book chronicles Eruzione's blue-collar upbringing in the Boston area, his last-minute recruitment to play for Boston University, his brief minor league career, and his post-Olympic life. Eruzione wraps up by reflecting on the enduring and wide-reaching effect of that game. VERDICT Eruzione adds an honest insider's view of the Miracle, which will appeal to hockey fans and admirers of sports autobiographies.--Sara Holder, Univ. of Illinois Libs., Champaign

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2019
The captain of the 1980 "miracle on ice" turns in his account of that victory. In a moment that's lodged in the memories of millions, Eruzione recounts how a team of American amateur hockey players, a couple of them still teenagers, faced off against a veteran Russian squad made up of professionals. It was a long shot, reckoned the author, who captained the American Olympic team at Lake Placid, and scarcely believable when the scoreboard turned 4-3 in favor of his team. Forging them into a unit was the work of coach Herb Brooks, who had a curious method: "he made us a close-knit team by making himself everybody's enemy." When his team won, he went off alone, not joining in the celebration. It was strange behavior, but it worked, and, as Eruzione allows, nobody was better than Brooks at getting inside a player's head and pushing the right buttons to achieve the desired results. Some of the book, charming but hardly indispensable, concerns the author's childhood in a poor but aspirational Italian American family in Boston, where "my mother had a pot with sausage and gravy on the stove every day." Students of athletic development will be interested in his observation that he came to excel in hockey because he played two other sports, baseball and football, that taught him transferrable skills. But the best part of the narrative is the you-are-there, blow-by-blow account of that Lake Placid game of 1980, told with verve and a sharp eye for the right detail, which served him well in a later career as a sports commentator: "Mark picked up the puck and hit Robby McClanahan on the left wing. His shot went wide. Back the Soviets came to our side. Alexander Golikov tried a backhander. Jimmy sticked it aside. The puck got tied up along the boards. Another whistle. And an incident." Fans of Olympic hockey will delight in Eruzione's spirited memoir.

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