Craig Patrick recalls Herb Brooks' brilliance on 40th anniversary of Miracle on Ice

On Feb. 22, 1980, Team USA pulled off perhaps the greatest upset in sports history, knocking off the vaunted Soviet national team at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Even as players climbed atop the podium to receive their gold medals after completing the mission with a win over Finland two days later, the authors of the Miracle on Ice didn’t realize the impact of what they had done.

They were staying four to a trailer in the Olympic village. There were no televisions or newspapers handy, former Penguins general manager Craig Patrick, an assistant coach on the 1980 team, recalled Friday. They essentially were sequestered.

It wasn’t until they were flown to Washington on Air Force One to meet President Jimmy Carter that they realized the magnitude of what they accomplished.

“From Andrews Air Force Base to the White House, the road was lined with people, on both sides of the road, waving flags,” Patrick said. “We just thought, ‘What did we do?’ We had no idea.”

Forty years later, Americans everywhere still are waving flags in celebration of their feat.

On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Penguins will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice when Patrick and Team USA captain Mike Eruzione drop the puck for a ceremonial faceoff before a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

It is sure to be an emotional night for Patrick, who is known to be a bit of a cryer, for a reason: It will remind him of Herb Brooks, the late coach for whom he always has had immense respect and admiration.

“To me, it’s the Herb Brooks story, and it should be,” Patrick said, breaking up for a moment as he shared his thoughts on the 2004 movie “Miracle.”

“He was brilliant.”

Patrick first got a glimpse of Brooks’ brilliance in spring 1979.

Patrick was about to turn 33, wrapping up his playing career by representing the U.S. in the World Championships in Moscow, when Brooks approached him about possibly serving as an assistant coach for the Olympic team.

Shortly after returning home, Patrick got a call from Brooks.

“Are you still interested?” Patrick recalled Brooks asking.

“Yeah, I’m interested still. When do you need me?” Patrick asked.

“Tomorrow,” Brooks replied.

So Patrick packed a bag, jumped in his car and drove from his home in Washington, D.C., to St. Paul, Minn. In his first conversation with Brooks, Patrick learned how the coach planned to get a disparate roster made up of college rivals from all over the country to come together as one.

“The guys we have on this team don’t like each other,” Patrick remembered Brooks telling him. “They’ve been competing with each other for national championships for years. The only way I know how to make them a team is to do exactly what he did. He wanted them to be united against him.

“He said, ‘Craig, your job is to keep all the pieces together.’ That was in May of 1979. It was all part of his master plan from the very, very beginning.”

While Patrick’s opinion of the job Brooks did in 1980 couldn’t be higher, he has come to realize something about the U.S. roster that wasn’t necessarily apparent at the time.

The upset of the Soviets is often painted as a group of ragtag college kids defeating a well-oiled professional team.

In hindsight, 13 of those kids went on to play in the NHL. Neal Broten, Mike Ramsey, Dave Christian and Mark Johnson were All-Stars. Ken Morrow won the Stanley Cup four times.

“They played over 6,000 games in the NHL as a group and scored over 3,500 points as a group,” Patrick said, “so they weren’t that bad.”

Not bad at all, and Patrick has the hardware to prove it.

Patrick keeps his gold medal in a safety deposit box, but if friends or family members ask, he will fish it out and show it to them.

“People like to hold it and put it on and get pictures with it,” Patrick said. “I love having it. It’s part of my life.”