I'm guessing many here were either not born yet or too young to remember. I vividly recall watching it in my living room at the age of 10. No matter....just like many moments in history, we all know about it whether we witnessed it or not. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't believe we will ever see an upset of this magnitude in sports in our lifetimes, ever.
If you have 90 minutes to kill, here's the whole game. One of the things that seemed like no big deal at the time, but strikes me as remarkable today, is that the game was actually broadcast on tape delay by several hours. I had no idea ahead of time who won, and I have never spoken to anyone who did. Obviously, that wouldn't be the case today. Given what a momentous event it was, pretty remarkable job by the late (and former O's minority owner) Jim McKay, who appeared live during the broadcast and kept a pretty straight face. After 3 1/2 decades, I still get chills.
If you have 90 minutes to kill, here's the whole game. One of the things that seemed like no big deal at the time, but strikes me as remarkable today, is that the game was actually broadcast on tape delay by several hours. I had no idea ahead of time who won, and I have never spoken to anyone who did. Obviously, that wouldn't be the case today. Given what a momentous event it was, pretty remarkable job by the late (and former O's minority owner) Jim McKay, who appeared live during the broadcast and kept a pretty straight face. After 3 1/2 decades, I still get chills.
Maybe this is in hindsight, but I think the flag waving behind Jim McKay is a hint of what happened. I probably wouldn't haven't thought much at the time since the idea of the US winning was so far-fetched though. Still amazing for McKay to stay as composed as he was given everything, both sports-wise/global.
This is a bit stating the obvious, but it was a simpler back in 1980 -- no Internet and cable not being as mainstream to ruin what happened. I saw something from Dan Steinberg on how a WJLA journalist accidentally blurted out what happened though. Now with a million channels not to mention other media platforms not available back then, there's no way it wouldn't have aired live -- but you pretty much would've had to disconnect yourself from society to avoid finding out about it.
I was nine years old. Since it was a weekend night and there was nothing on the four channels of TV I could get at the time, I stayed up and watched that game - the first hockey game I'd ever witnessed. I had very little idea of what I was watching, but the tension was incredible. Like good hockey can be.
Always been thankful I got to watch it. Had it been on a school night, I'd have missed it. Heck, my mom wouldn't let me stay up to watch the '83 World Series. I had such a repressed childhood.
He said his memorable, off-the-cuff line “just came from my heart.”
“Remember, it was one of the rare times that you can do a game and you know that 99.99% of the audience is going the same way you are in terms of the rooting interest,” he said. “And the other 15 people are probably KGB agents, and they’re not happy.”
I believe that is still the only Hockey game, I have watched from beginning to end. I think, not only the biggest upset of all time, but Michael's call will long live as one of the best closes ever. I believe it was snowing bad that night.