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Herb Brooks: Olympic Ice Hockey

Brooks was the last person to be cut by coach Jack Riley from the 1960 gold medal winning U.S. Olympic team. Brooks did however later play in the Olympic games in 1964, and he was the captain in 1968.

The USA had speed, defense, scorers, conditioning, goaltending, and coaching - a complete team, something the Soviets didn't realize until it was too late. The Soviets had expected to win the tournament with the same ease with which they had dispatched all comers at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. Further buoying their confidence was the 10-3 licking they had applied to the Americans in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden just one week before the world arrived at Lake Placid.

Coach Herb Brooks had been worried about the Germans, because they had beaten the USA 4-1 in 1976 at Innsbruck, undermining coach Bob Johnson's hope of a bronze medal. They didn't have the talent to compete with the Americans. They weren't fancy, like the Swedes, Czechs, Finns, and Soviets. But they were dangerous because they played hockey as if it was trench warfare. They were tough and determined, not like the German players who the Americans whipped in the 1960s.

Brooks wondered whether he had successfully exorcised the players' memories of the humiliating defeat they had suffered in Madison Square Garden at the hands of the Soviets. "Our guys were applauding the Soviets when they were introduced," he recalled.

One of coach Herb Brooks's goals before the Olympics was to "break down the Soviets to mortals." He told his players that the great Boris Mikhailov looked like Stan Laurel of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy. He hoped his players would stop looking at Mikhailov as if he was hockey's Zeus. "You can beat Stan Laurel, can't you?" Brooks would ask.

Mark Johnson was twenty-two years old, yet he probably had as much hockey savvy as some of the veteran Soviets. Though he hadn't played as much as they had, Johnson possessed a sense about the game that other Americans did not. As the son of the legendary American coach Bob Johnson, he had soaked up every bit of insight that was available in every hockey school his father had run and when his father had coached the national team in 1975.

Although Johnson was probably the best player in college hockey, he had some concerns about making the 1980 Olympic team because Brooks and his dad were bitter rivals. When Brooks was at Minnesota and Johnson was at Wisconsin, they never had anything good to say about each other. "They got along with Germany and France," said agent Art Kaminsky, who considered himself friends with both men.

Mark Johnson said he was never comfortable that he would be on the team until the pre-Olympic tour in Oslo, Norway, when Brooks told him the was counting on him to be a leader as well as a player. But Brooks's desire to win at the Olympics meant more to him than prolonging any feud.

He even patched up his considerable difference with Kaminsky, an important step because the agent Kaminsky was going to represent most of the players Brooks wanted for his team. Kaminsky said that prior to their peace accord, Brooks considered him "vermin." Kaminsky jokingly responded: "And I thought he was a maniac." After Brooks and Kaminsky had each vented their frustrations with the other, they decided to work together, knowing that a successful run at the Olympic Games would be best for all concerned.

Brooks was short-shifting his players to keep them fresh. Two minutes after Johnson's goal, Eruzione jumped off the bench with a burst of energy. He ended up in the slot, where Pavelich found him with a pass. Eruzione fired a 25-foot wrist shot that skipped through a screen and past Myshkin. All of America rejoiced.

Brooks seemed to understand how to push Craig's buttons better than anyone. Just before the Olympics, Brooks told Craig he might have made a mistake by playing him too much. He left the impression that he didn't believe Craig was playing all that well. "You are playing tired, and your curveball is hanging." Brooks said to him. That might have devastated some players, but that kind of talk simply fueled Craig, who could transform anger into energy. During the Olympics, he never looked tired.

Brooks was not like any hockey coach these players had experienced before. He was hockey's version of George Patton or Norman Schwarzkopf. In style, he was a combination dictator-philosopher whose instructions forced his players to think as well as act. Every day was an adventure in psychology for the guys wearing the red, white, and blue. "He got inside our heads," Ramsey said.

Backup goaltender Steve Janaszak recalled a nose-to-nose confrontation when Brooks convinced left-winger Rob McClanahan to continue playing in the tournament opener against Sweden despite a severe charley horse. Brooks questioned McClanahan's manhood in a curse-filled tirade and called him a "cake eater." McClanahan responded with cursing of his own. The scene was ugly.

The enraged McClanahan went out and played as well as he could with his muscle knotted. "That locker room scene is still vivid in my mind," Janaszak said more than a decade later. Brooks's attack on McClanahan probably had little to do with McClanahan and more to do with the fact that Americans weren't playing well in their first Olympic test. Brooks tried to unify his team against him, a technique he used on many occasions, and sent a message to his players that the team was going to overcome all obstacles. Players kept a notebook of what they called "Brooksisms." One of them was "This team isn't talented enough to win on talent alone."

Before the game against the Soviets, Brooks took out a note card and read a prepared text. "You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here." His players believed him. Brooks said the 1980 Olympic team members embodied qualities he admired most. "The players had big egos, but they didn't have ego problems. That's why all-star teams traditionally seem to self-destruct. We didn't."

And there was the Conehead line of Mark Pavelich, John Harrington, and Buzz Schneider, named after the Saturday Night Live alien characters. All three players were from Minnesota's Iron Range, and none of them played a style that could be easily copied.

Eruzione recalled their strange play. "They were the only line that stayed intact because no one could play with them," Eruzione says. "I played with them once, and I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going." Brooks liked to use the Conehead unit when he needed some creativity or a home run swing. When the play looked innocent, that's when the Coneheads were most dangerous.

A sizeable portion of the U.S. team, assembled some seven months earlier, came from Minnesota. Nine members were from the University of Minnesota hockey team. The coach was also Minnesota's coach, a two-time Olympian himself and a stern disciplinarian. Brooks did not delude himself that he had the talent to beat the Soviets. What he did have was a team of youngsters, average age 22, that would have to rely on more intangible assets.

Herb Brooks won Olympic gold and silver, three NCAA titles and 219 NHL games.

A Minnesota Treasure

Herb Brooks, who coached the U.S. hockey team to the "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics, died Monday in a car wreck. He was 66. The Hall of Famer was killed when his minivan rolled over north of the Twin Cities near where Interstate 35 splits toward Minneapolis and St. Paul, police said. The weather didn't appear to be a factor.

State Patrol Lt. Chuck Walerius said the minivan veered to the right onto the grassy area, then it appeared as if Brooks overcorrected his steering, causing his van to roll. He apparently wasn't wearing a seat belt and was found about 40 yards from the vehicle, dead at the scene, Walerius said. Police weren't aware of any pre-existing health problems and said there were no signs to indicate that alcohol was a factor in the crash.

Officials said they hope to know within a couple of weeks what caused the crash. Investigators began interviewing at least four witnesses Tuesday and experts in accident reconstruction were starting to piece together details, Department of Public Safety spokesman Kevin Smith said.

Brooks attended a U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame celebrity golf event in northern Minnesota but left around noon to catch a flight from Minneapolis to Chicago, USA Hockey spokesman Chuck Menke said. Tom Sersha, executive director at the Hall of Fame, which is based in Eveleth, attended the golf event. "He was in perfect health as far as I know," said Sersha, referring to a television report that the accident may have been health-related. "It seems like all the great innovators die young," said Ken Morrow, a defenseman on the 1980 team and now a scout for the New York Islanders. "Coach may have been the greatest innovator the sport has ever had."

Brooks was behind the bench when the Americans pulled off one of the greatest upsets ever, beating the mighty Soviets with a squad of mostly college players. That shocking victory, plus beating Finland for the gold medal, assured the team a place in sports immortality.

The young U.S. team was given no chance against a veteran Soviet squad that had dominated international hockey for years and had routed the Americans 10-3 in an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden the week before the Olympics. On Feb. 22, 1980, the U.S. team scored with 10 minutes to play to take a 4-3 lead against the Soviets and then held on. As the final seconds ticked away, announcer Al Michaels exclaimed, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

It remains one of the most famous calls in sports broadcasting history. "He was very single-minded -- a person who looked right down the tunnel and knew exactly what he had to do," Michaels said Monday night. "He was never caught up in the afterglow. Here's a guy that helped do something that galvanized the entire country, and he wasn't interested in parades or any attention. Just a few weeks after this, he decides to go and coach in Switzerland."

Brooks' leadership helped turn a ragtag team into champions. He had hand-picked each player. "You're looking for players whose name on the front of the sweater is more important than the one on the back," Brooks once said. "I look for these players to play hard, to play smart and to represent their country."

Interviewed years later on why he headed to the locker room shortly after the Miracle on Ice, he said he wanted to leave the ice to his players, who deserved it. "It was not my spot. I always say sort of flippantly, 'I had to go to the bathroom.' Or, 'If I'd have went on the ice when this thing happened, someone would have speared me or something.' It's a great feeling of accomplishment and pride. They had to do it; it was their moment."

Mark Johnson, who played on the 1980 Olympic team and now coaches the University of Wisconsin women's hockey team, said he was stunned by the news. "It's certainly a sad day for American hockey in the United States, which lost one of its finest coaches," Johnson said. "On a very sad note, we lose not only a great coach and an innovator of the game, but a real good friend."

Players kept a notebook of "Brooksisms," sayings the coach used for motivation, such as: "You're playing worse and worse every day and right now you're playing like it's next month." Before playing the Soviets, Brooks told his players: "You're meant to be here. This moment is yours. You're meant to be here at this time." "When it came to hockey, he was ahead of his time," Morrow said. "All of his teams overachieved because Herbie understood how to get the best out of each player and make him part of a team. And like everyone who played for him, I became a better person because I played for Herb Brooks."

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said making one of Brooks' teams was an "extraordinary accomplishment." "It is devastating to all of us in the hockey world that his passion for the game, his insight, his foresight, have been taken away," Bettman said.

Brooks returned to lead the 2002 U.S. Olympic hockey team to a silver medal. Players from the 1980 team, led by Mike Eruzione, lit the Olympic cauldron at the opening ceremony in Salt Lake City. After the Lake Placid Games, Brooks coached the New York Rangers (1981-85), where he reached the 100-victory mark faster than any other coach in franchise history. He coached the Minnesota North Stars (1987-88), the New Jersey Devils (1992-93) and the Pittsburgh Penguins (1999-00). He also led the French Olympic team at the 1998 Nagano Games. He had an NHL career coaching record of 219-222-66, including a 29-24-5 record with Pittsburgh.

Born in St. Paul, Brooks played hockey at the University of Minnesota, where he later coached from 1972 to 1979, winning three national titles. He was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 1990. "My gut reaction is Minnesota lost its head coach today," said Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a well-known hockey fanatic. "Herb Brooks was a Minnesota legend, a Minnesota treasure."

When Brooks decided to coach the U.S. team at Salt Lake City, he was asked why he would return after writing the most improbable story in hockey. "Maybe I'm sort of like the players -- there's still a lot of little boy in me," Brooks said. "And maybe I'm a little smarter now than I was before for all the stupid things I've done." Brooks was the last player cut on the 1960 U.S. gold medal team, but he played in 1964 and 1968.

Last season, Brooks was the director of player development for the Penguins. He rejected a multimillion-dollar offer to coach Rangers last summer, saying he didn't want to be away from his wife and family in Minnesota. "I knew him for 30 years -- we played together; we coached together; we worked together," Penguins general manager Craig Patrick said. "Herbie lived the game, and he loved the game." "It's a great loss for USA Hockey," said Bob Allen, who operated the Olympic Center during the 1980 Winter Games. "He was a master motivator, a great thinker."

In a recent interview at his White Bear Lake home, Brooks described to the Minneapolis Star Tribune about watching one of his favorite movies, "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." "You know, Willie Wonka said it best: We are the makers of dreams, the dreamers of dreams," Brooks said. "We should be dreaming. We grew up as kids having dreams, but now we're too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams. I'm a dreamer."

ESPN Classic. Coach known best for 1980 hockey gold. Tuesday, August 19, 2003.

Play Movie Trailer

Miracle (Widescreen) From the studio that brought you The Rookie and Remember the Titans comes a movie everybody loves. Filled with exhilarating nonstop hockey action and heart-racing suspense, it's the inspiring true story behind one of the greatest moments in sports history--the 1980 United States ice hockey team's triumphant Olympic victory against the Soviet Union. Kurt Russell gives a brilliant performance as the dynamic and determined coach Herb Brooks, who had an impossible dream--beat the seemingly unbeatable Soviets at their own game. Starting with a handpicked group of 26 undisciplined kids, Brooks coached them to play like they never played before, and turned 20 of them into a team that believed they could achieve the unachievable--and in the process, united a nation with a new feeling of hope.

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