Mark Johnson relives the connected dots that made his 1980 Olympic gold medal journey

The miracle has been told many times, and it never loses its luster.

A team littered with amateurs during the height of the Cold War, a time when the United States and the Soviet Union were on the brink multiple times of starting the third World War, was forced to skate with one of the greatest hockey teams in history on the grandest stage in the world.

They were overmatched, undersized, and their talent was nowhere near that of their opponents. The end result, however, was a 4-3 American victory that media outlets throughout the world have called and continue to label the ‘greatest upset in sports history.’

But through the eyes of Wisconsin hockey great Mark Johnson, arguably the most talented player on a team of talented amateurs, there were so many things that went into that memorable memory, one that he will forever be associated with, that it begs the question: Was the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team’s victory over the Soviet Union really a miracle?

Join us in wishing our teammate #10 Mark Johnson a Happy 63rd Birthday today!#40YearsLater:After the #80Games Mark played in @NHL for @penguins, @MN_NorthStars, @HartfordWhalers, @StLouisBlues & @NJDevils. He retired in 92 but played 2 games for @TeamUSA in 98 at the age of 41! pic.twitter.com/Z9h0J81mYm
— 1980 Miracle Hockey Team (@1980MiracleTeam) September 22, 2020

Conditioning for the Olympics

Johnson made his international debut with the United States national team as an 18-year-old in 1976, when he played in 11 training games for the 1976 US Olympic ice hockey team coached by his father.

At the same time, Johnson was just beginning his storied career at Wisconsin, a career that spanned from 1976 to 1979 and included 125 games played, 125 goals (a school record), 131 assists, and 176 points. So when the tryouts for the 1980 Olympic team were in Colorado Springs in the summer of 1979, Johnson was considered a lock for the team.

With former Minnesota Gopher head coach Herb Brooks coaching the team and Johnson’s father, Badger Bob Johnson, having plenty of clashes in the WCHA, Johnson was unsure of what his role would be for Brooks.

“Initially, you don’t know what is going to happen,” Johnson said. “I was coming off a year where I was selected college player of the year, so I felt comfortable where I was at. I was more concerned with how I was going to get treated and what role I was going to play.”

The role that Johnson was expected to fulfill, along with his 19 teammates, was to change their style of play to fit what Brooks needed in order to compete.

While Johnson had played a controlled run-and-gun offense at Wisconsin, with an emphasis on transitioning from offense to defense and vice versa, Brooks created a hybrid system that incorporated what he observed the Europeans doing for multiple years.

Instead of playing the American style of hockey (dumping the puck into the opponent’s zone and chasing after it), Brooks wanted the Americans to play a controlled, puck-possession game. European squads like the Russians and the Czechs would not break to the net unless they were in a 2-on-1 or 3-on-1 situation and only attack when they had the numbers to do so.

“Herb’s philosophy was if we were going to beat them, we had to play their style of game,” Johnson said. “We had a skilled team. The early part of it, like any system you put in, is going to take time to adapt to it and adjust to it.”

For a coach like Brooks, time was limited. Having only seven months to revamp the way the Americans approached, trained, and valued hockey made for intense practices to improve conditioning, a plethora of games to incorporate the style of play, and no excuses.

“The hardest part was we were all coming off college seasons, and you weren’t used to the travel aspect of it,” Johnson said. “Of the 60 games we played, 48 of them were on the road. We spent a lot of time in trains, planes, buses, and hotels. That (schedule) can wear and tear on you if you are not used to it. Playing a hybrid schedule in a short period of time was grinding, but it was part of the process of getting where we needed to go – being tired, playing multiple games in multiple days, and working through it to become better mentally.”

Brooks demanded that his players be mentally tough at every opportunity and used motivation and tactics to deliver his point. Tying the Norwegian National Team 2-2, in Oslo, Brooks made his players skate up and down the ice – a drill the players called ‘Herbies’ – late into the evening.

“That was his way of indicating to us that it doesn’t matter who you play or where you play them,” Johnson said. “If we’re going to be successful, we have to have everybody putting forth a 100 percent effort, or else things like this can happen. In the Olympics, if you have one hiccup, your opportunity might be gone. A tie might eliminate you from the medal round. That was early in the process, and it told us that if you want to be a part of this process, you’re going to have to work.”

Embarrassment in the Garden

Part of the process the Americans had to go through was to study the teams they would be facing in Lake Placid, New York, in the XXII Olympic Games. Like all other world hockey teams, the Americans had to study the Soviet Union, undoubtedly the best hockey team in the world.

Gold medal winners in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976, Johnson knew how impressive the Russians were after watching them flourish in person.

“I had seen them in the middle 70s because of my dad coaching numerous world championships,” Johnson said. “When you see them at that time, you were amazed by their skill level, their quickness, and their ability to pass the puck and control the game at a real high tempo.”

If the American amateurs were impressed by what they saw on film, they received a rude wake-up call three days before the opening ceremony in New York City. Playing the Soviet Union in front of a sold-out Madison Square Garden, the Americans were destroyed by the empire, losing soundly 10-3.

“Once it became two or three nothing, it became ‘watching’ instead of ‘playing,’” Johnson said. “It became a real lesson in humility of getting embarrassed. The reality that was shown to us was that they were going to win the gold medal and were much better than we were.”

In retrospect, the reality was that the blowout was one of the best things that happened to the Americans’ Olympic preparation. With 60 percent of the team having never seen their Olympic team, they were enthralled with what the Russians could do physically on the ice.

The next time the two teams met in the opening game of the medal round, the situation and surroundings had changed.

“One of the advantages of Lake Placid was the ability to gain momentum and have a stadium watching you and supporting you and wanting to encourage you to do well,” Johnson said. “From a player’s standpoint, you are scared to death, so you got out and play with part fear in you because you don’t want to lose that moment.

“We had been on the upswing because of previous things that we had done in the past five games, especially beating the Czechs 7-3, who were the number two team in the world and were probably the only team that had a realistic chance to beat the Russians. Our momentum was high, and you had a team that played us not too long ago and whooped us. It was almost like a setup, and they probably took us lightly.”

The First 40 Minutes

Just like several other Olympic games, the Americans fell behind early when Vladimir Krutov deflected a shot past U.S. goalie Jim Craig to give the Soviets a 1–0 lead. After Team USA and winger Buzz Schneider scored for the United States to tie the game, Soviet team captain Sergei Makarov registered a goal to regain the lead.

In the waning seconds of the first period, defenseman Dave Christian fired a shot on Soviet goalie Vladislav Tretiak, who was considered the best in the world. Johnson’s quick thinking gave the Americans the boost they needed.

“I knew there wasn’t much time left, and instincts and habits tell you to follow the pick to where it was shot,” Johnson said. “We were fortunate that the two Russian defensemen relaxed for a split second and allowed me to get by them. Tretiak uncharacteristically left a rebound, and I happened to be skating in that position when the rebound came down. You don’t think about it. You just pick it up and put it in. You just do what comes naturally to it and instead of going into intermission down 2-1, you go in 2-2, and the mindset is totally different.”

The mindset of U.S.S.R. coach Viktor Tikhonov was slightly different. Whether out of panic or to make an example out of his goalie, Tikonov pulled Tretiak at the start of the second period in favor of backup goalie Vladimir Myshkin, a move that, 45 years later, is still shocking.

“He was one of the top three goaltenders to ever play the sport and their leader who had won previous goal medals and world championships,” Johnson said. “I think Tikhonov wanted to use him as motivation that if we play how we are capable of playing, we can score seven goals against these young amateurs. Unfortunately, our defense and the ability to keep the puck out of the net are a piece of history. He picked the wrong day to make the wrong choice, but we all get evaluated at the end.”

Even after the Soviets took a 3-2 lead heading into the third and final period, the Americans still had faith that the impossible was not as impossible as it once seemed.

History is Made

Coming out clicking on all cylinders, getting the overwhelming American crowd to believe along with them, Team USA, with the help of Johnson, gave the Americans more momentum 8:39 into the period, corralling a loose puck and firing it past Myshkin for the tying goal.

“It was one of those things that part of our objective was to stay as close for as long as we could,” Johnson said. “If you shorten the game up, anything can happen. We felt very confident down 3-2, and we took small increments to make everything seem easier. We score at the end of power play to make it 3-3, and the whole tournament takes shape because they are in a position where they are not used to being.”

A couple of shifts later, team captain Mike Eruzione scored the go-ahead goal to suddenly put the Americans up by one with exactly 10 minutes to go.

“Everything was like ‘Whoa.’ It was controlled chaos, but we all looked at the task at hand,” Johnson said. “We did not want to lose perspective, and we took each shift as an individual shift and not look at the whole 10 minutes. You look at the clock, and it keeps going so slowly. When you get under five minutes, you really start to believe that if you do what you’ve been doing and everything that has been difficult over the past six months – training, travel, and conditioning – made everything worthwhile.”

Every other minute, Johnson would get his shift on the ice and try to stop the Soviet barrage of shots. Looking up at the clock and feeling like the seconds were minutes and the minutes were hours, Johnson never let victory seep into his brain until he knocked the puck out of the zone with seven seconds left in the game. It was then that he finally realized the accomplishment, a moment that still brings a smile to his face.

“It’s like a little kid at Christmas time when he opens up his two or three presents and gets everything he wants,” he said. “There are so many things to remember that you just remember excitement. If you watch the next minute, whatever words describe that scene is what the players were feeling.”

But of all the surreal, magical moments that Johnson has from that game, it was a moment that happened afterwards in the oddest of places that Johnson ranks at the top.

“Each team had two players picked to give urine samples in the doping room, and I scored two goals, so I was randomly picked along with Valery Kharlamov and Sergei Makarov,” Johnson said. “To have them shake your hand and congratulate you in Russian is sort of a special moment.”

“Growing up here in Madison, I would go out on Sunday afternoon to the Coliseum with my dad to play Russian games,” he continued. “My dad would wear a Kharlamov or Makarov jersey when people didn’t know who these players were. These two players were at the latter part of their careers. I had watched them play for seven years, and they were great elite players. For them to congratulate me is something was really unique and ironic of how all that worked out.”

Mark Johnson (#10) of the United States, rises to the occasion again and ices it for USA as he hugs teammate Steve Christoff (#11) after a big SH goal late in the 3rd against Finland. GOLD.🥇

Miracle complete. pic.twitter.com/KEmxhc0hJW
— The Hockey Samurai 侍 (@hockey_samurai) October 9, 2022

Going for the Gold

One of the biggest misconceptions from the Soviet Union upset was that it was for the gold medal. The medal round was a round-robin, not a single-elimination format like it is currently. Under the Olympic rules at the time, the group game with Sweden (a game the Americans tied 2-2) was counted along with the medal round games against the Soviet Union and Finland. It was mathematically possible for the U.S. to finish anywhere from first to fourth, out of the medals.

“We practiced the next day, and you just accomplish something as crazy as we did, naturally, human nature takes over, and we felt pretty good about ourselves,” Johnson said. “We probably had one of the hardest practices we had all year, which basically told us that this wasn’t over.”

A message Brooks gave to his players was another reminder of how the game against Finland would determine the team’s legacy.

“Herb told us basically if we screwed up tomorrow, we would regret it for the rest of our lives. He threw a few f-bombs in there and told us, ‘If you screw up, we’d take it to our f’n graves.’ He said that twice, and he didn’t say it anymore, and he did not have to because we knew we controlled our own destiny.”

Through two periods against Finland, Team USA found itself in a usual spot, trailing (this time 2-1) and with only 20 minutes to play.

“There was a quiet sense of confidence. If you looked at all our games, we tended to fall behind and then come back,” Johnson said. “We were going to win the game and play our best third period of the tournament. We did not know how it would happen or what events would transpire to make it happen. So we rolled up our sleeves, and we go.”

After a goal by Phil Verchota, Johnson, who led the team with 11 points in the Olympics, delivered once again. Johnson set up Rob McClanahan for the go-ahead goal, and Johnson scored a shorthanded goal to seal the victory.

“Phil Verchota was probably the happiest guy sitting in the penalty box,” Johnson said. We had just taken a penalty and killed it off, and Phil took a penalty. A tie didn’t do us any good, and people didn’t realize how good Finland really was. A lot of those guys came over and played in the NHL, but we saved our best for last.”

“You look back over your career, and there are certain things that stick out. Certainly being a part of that group is one of them. There are only 20 guys that have a medal, no coaches, trainers, etc., and you were a part of that 20 group that worked together and understood what it took to become a team and give your chance to be successful with no guarantees at the end.”

Was it a Miracle?

From the hard work in conditioning, training, and preparing, from the game against the Soviets in Madison Square Garden to get the jitters out, to making it to the medal round, to believing that they could compete, and to outskating the Soviets, the win was a culmination of a long, tireless journey for Johnson.

Still, with all the preparation Team USA put into the Olympics, was the Miracle on Ice a result of the hard work and many variables coming together at the right time or was it a miracle after all?

“You try to connect all these dots,” Johnson said, bringing his hands together in an interlocking grip. “There are times in our lives at certain points when, all of a sudden, certain things line up, and if you try to create that scenario again, you would never be able to connect all these dots ever again. With all the things going on in the country and everything else, a computer couldn’t put these dots together.

“We had a pretty good team and the careers they went on to have,” he added. “I don’t know if miracle is the right word, but you could not have drawn up a script and connected all the dots with what happened. You can look back and do things, but going in, no way. There is no way you could fantasize about it.”

If that defines what a miracle is, then so be it.