Bigger Upset 1980 US/USSR or 2002 Belraus/Sweden?

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Belarus w/ only one NHL player and out scored 22-6 in the first round beat 3-0-0 Sweden today. Is that a bigger upset than the US college kids beating the russians in 1980?

 

I was thinking about that...I remember watching the USA v. Russia game in 1980. That was the most exciting game I've ever watched!!! Being an American myself, I'm a little biased.

SO I'm leaning toward 1980 - But this game was awesome! The Belorussians hung with Sweden all game, I was very impressed! That shot at the end that deflected off Salo's shoulder was a tough one to take...I was happy for Belarus, and a little crushed for Sweden.

After thinking about both games, I still think the 1980 game was bigger. Mostly because the US team WAS comprised of college students, and the Soviet team was esssentially a professional team. Sorry for being nationalistic...But there it is!

[This message has been edited by Sir Belisarius (edited February 21, 2002).]

 

True the 80 us team was college kids, but they were undefeated going into the semifinal game, however Belarus wasn't just winless, they hadn't been competative and were a underdog just to make the 8 team final founds. Add in the flukey nature of the winning shot and though I too am an American I'd say today's game at least ties. I was sure Sweden would win, take out Canada or Finland and face the winner of the US/Russia rematch for the gold.

Also who else would like to see the NHL rules changed to be more like international play. No red line (allowing 2 line passes) makes the game much more exciting.

 

They've talked about removing the centerline before...It definitely makes for a quicker game! If they did it though, they should probably increase the size of the rink to Olympic size as well....I have a visual of someone getting popped by a defensman as they cherrypick for the puck, and getting knocked out for good!

BTW - It was a really good game today. That trickler at the end was a heartbreaker...But for me, the Swedes just didn't have the mystique that the Soviets did for me in 1980 - I mean, they were the EVIL EMPIRE!!!!

 

Something to keep in mind about that Soviet team is that they beat the hell out of NHL teams prior to heading to the Olympics. Also, they'd beaten the hell out of the U.S. at Madison Square Garden just prior to the games. Finally, they had Tretiak(sp?) in the goal who is arguably the best player in history (not just goalee) and as we all know good goal tending is the most crucial element of hockey (ask the Czechs 4 years ago.)
This may be a huge upset but it's of a different sory. THe 1980 game was huge because the Soviets were just that much better than anyone else (and the political element.) Today was an upset because Belarus was just that bad, not because Sweden was clearly the best team in the world (with all due respect to Sweden, they're a good team but not a vastly superior one.)

EDIT-- oh yeah, for the record, how can you pull the greatest goalee in the world for letting up at the end of the period along with the rest of the team and giving up a stupid goal? Hindsight is 20/20 but obviously a bad move. You dance with who brung you.

[This message has been edited by Laches (edited February 21, 2002).]

 

I was at work so I didn't see the game - but I was stunned when I came home and saw that score!! I huge boost for Belarus - and a terrible blow to Sweden I have to say. As a die-hard Leafs fan, I was cheering for Sundin. But I have to say that the Miracle on Ice was still bigger. The US was a nobody in terms of hockey at that time. Between 1962 (think that was the year at Squaw Valley) and 1980 the US hadn't won a single hockey medal or tournament. It was the Soviets or Canada, and that was pretty much it.

But the main difference I see is that the US won gold - Belarus hasn't won any medals yet, just one game. And Sweden isn't what the Soviets were. To truly compare with the miracle on ice, everyone on the Belarus team would have to be 22 years or less with only college or high school hockey backgrounds. That's what made it a 'miracle'

BTW - Sweden *is* vastly superior to the Belarus Team (as it stands), just as are the Canadians, the US, the Russians, the Czechs and the Finns. Just not on the same level of the 'professional' Soviet-era teams versus the US college kids. Also don't forget that Sweden was the gold medal champions in '94, beating Canada in a shoot-out. But, flukes happen in one-game playoffs, like that last goal

[This message has been edited by Gnolyn Lochbreaker (edited February 21, 2002).]

 

I remember the 80's game too and it will remain forever as something heroic and fantastic. Swedens loss today is even more surprising but IMHO not a game that will be remembered as heroic. It was a case of a team having a really, really bad day.
The US-Soviet game was for the gold, while this was a measly quarterfinal.

Today is a very black day for us swedes.

 

Actually, the US/Soviet game wasn't for the gold. The US had to come from behind one more time to win the gold.

 

I gotta say that 1980 was bigger for several reasons...

1. The U.S team was all college guys, the guys on Belarus are all in professional legues.

2. The strength of the 1980 Soviet team, No one could touch these guys in the 70's the dominated everyone, including the NHL All-Star's. Sweden has a dam strong team but they could not be compared to the Soviets.

3. The Belarus team had good streaks in many of there games. They went tough with Russia in that 6-4 loss and were leading the U.S. team 1-0 after the first period.

I think when you factor in all this I feel that the 1980 Miracle was still a bit bigger... of course that's just my opinion I could be wrong.....

 

I checked out that 1980 Russian team some more. Just before the games they had trounced some NHL teams and the US team by the score 10-3.
Get this though. Prior to the US game they had outscored they were 5-0 in the games outscoring their opponents by an amazing 51-11. Incredible. It's a shame the Soviets refused Tretiak's request to allow him to play in the NHL, he had agreed to turn over his salary to the Soviet Union but they still said no (didn't want THE national hero defecting to the US or Canada I imagine.) I mean, the Red Wings won the Cup not long ago with the Russian line. Imagine all the Russian guys in the league on the same team playing with each other from their early teens until they were past their prime. The Soviets identified every capable hockey athlete and started training them at a young age -- they were an amazing hockey power. It would be the equivalent of the US telling all the great athletes here they couldn't play baseball, or football, or basketball but they all had to play hockey and they had to start during their pre-teens. Then only the very best made the Red Army team.

I had the chance to watch the Red Army team years ago in an exhibition against the Rangers. The Rangers were completely outclassed. The Red Army team was a beautiful juxtoposition of wonder and sadness.

 

It was a great match... poor Salo... he should have stopped that shot.....

So what will be the final? Russia? Or Canada - VS? A pity that the Czech republic lost... I like that team, especially Hlasek, the best goalie in the world.

 

Belarus beating Sweden is a bigger upset. They have two NHL-ers (Salei and Tsyplakov - though he's now a free agent). The Soviets never then did not play in the NHL so they could not make their game more physical, thus better. Sweden is a great team though I think they lack scoring forwards. (Forsberg, where art thou?)
I hope the Russians win because Americans will have the refs playing for them. Last night against Germany they had 2 min of penalties to Germany's 31. And that's just in the 1st period.
Irony... My favourite team id Czech Rep., but they lost to a goal from Afinogenov, my favourite Russian besides Kovalev and Kasparaitis.

 

The Soviet - and later Russian - hockey teams are clear favourites (well, after Sweden of course) of mine with their brilliant hockey. I agree as someone said the Soviet Union were Evil incarnate - was it Reagan that called it the Evil Empire? - but oh, the hockey those guys played!
@Laches
Thanks for correcting me, I guess the years have clouded my memory some.

 

Canada beat Finland woo hooo

I must add, they out shot them 50-1 in the first period!!! Dont make Gretzky mad, we play better hehe.

 

I'd have to say the 1980 win by the US over the USSR. The reason for this is the status of the players. The US in 1980 were just a bunch of college students and the USSR were the best players in their country. The USSR team had crushed the US All-Stars a few months earlier so they were one (if not the best) team in the world.

 

They may have beaten the NHL All-Stars...But the Soviets couldn't beat the Broad Street Bullies, AKA: The Philadelphia Flyers (My favorite team)...Let me take you back in time...

PHILADELPHIA - The Flyers could not be denied. Central Red Army left the ice protesting Philadelphia violence yesterday but their pique was misplaced. Philadelphia was built on a reputation of roughness yet their victory before 17,007 fans at the Spectrum was not the product of intimidation. Rather it was a classic demonstration of teamwork, hard work and execution and when it was over the Flyers were the world champions. "We have never played (against) such animal hockey", said Konstantin Loktev, the Red Army coach, explaining his reaction to the Flyers. In the first period he removed his team for 16 minutes protesting against Ed Van Impe's check, which felled Army forward Valeri Kharlamov.

National Hockey League president Clarence Campbell, NHL Players' Association executive director Alan Eagleson and finally Vlacheslav Koloskov, head of the Russian delegation, calmed the emotional coach.

But if he was brought to his senses his team never was. They were never able to penetrate the Flyers' defense, which was stacked at its' blueline so effectively that Army was held to just 13 shots.
At the other end of the ice the Flyers did what the Russians have become so well known for - only taking the good shot. The amazing aspect of this contest was that the Flyers had 49 shots, almost none of them wasted or not dangerous.

The Russians are known for their system, which moves in circles. The Flyers had them going in circles but not the way the Russians like. It was as if the Russians were asked to run an obstacle course and they couldn't do it.

They were humbled by another system - Fred Shero's. The Flyer's coach called the game the most important he ever coached and he came through under the pressure. He put in a stand up defense and he instructed his forwards to hold the puck as much as possible in the Russian end, which they did, even if it meant not shooting.
"I told them to hold the puck for a face-off if they didn't have a good shot. They're not very good at face-offs anyway"
For a man who felt so strongly about the game beforehand, he had very little to say afterwards. "My reaction? I feel the same way I did when we beat the Boston in 1974. I don't feel anything. Ask me tomorrow"
The Flyers had taken 12 shots at Russian goaltender Vladislav Tretiak when Army left the ice at 11:21 but hadn't been able to beat him. Within 30 seconds of resumption of play, Reg Leach deflected in a shot from the blueline with the Russians short a man for a delay of the game penalty.

The Flyers didn't need any picking up, but until late in the second period, the Flyers were so dominate it was as if they were playing the expansion dregs of the NHL. Rick MacLeish, who had 9 shots against Tretiak, beat him for the first and only time late in the first period.

Flyers even controlled the game when they were shorthanded early in the second period. Defenseman Joe Watson gave them a 3-0 lead while they were supposed to be killing a penalty. Army made its only move of the game midway in the period and while they couldn't get past the blueline often, they squeezed through to pile up most of their 12 shots at Wayne Stephenson.
Victor Kutyorgin scored the Army goal during this small-scale assault.

Army had eight shots in the second period, not many, but more than any other period. In the first Stephenson faced only two shots and in the third only three.
The Flyers, who had a total of 31 shots after two periods, simply never let up and pounded Tretiak for another 18 in the third, but only Larry Goodenough's drive from the slot with the Flyers on the power play beat the amazing goaltender.

If it wasn't for Tretiak I think we'd have hit double figures", said Gary Dornhoefer. "He's big and covered much territory", said Rick MacLeish, who against another goaltender might have had the best production game of his career.

The Army confused the Flyers but not in the way that was expected. Their reputation for relentless offensive thrust preceded them here but yesterday there was little of it. "They just kept looking for the perfect opportunity", MacLeish said. "Even in the last five minutes they just kept circling. Either they have a lot of patience or they just can't adjust".

"You can have the puck between the bluelines all night long but it won't do you any good if you can't get it in. We could let them do it all the game and still beat them", said Bobby Clarke. "But this doesn't prove Canadian hockey is better than theirs. It just means the Flyers are better than their best. I'm sure the next time they will have adjusted."

"They tried to make the picture perfect play at the blueline", said Terry Crisp, a center Shero has taught to check and made into an effective player in the Flyer mold. "I don't understand it. Any coach I've ever had has warned against it. The best thing about this game is that we've showed some who think that their system is the be all and end all is that it's not."

The Flyers were playing high on emotion, which was helped by the games' preliminaries - they must have startled the Russians who had nothing to compare it to in their previous 3 games against NHL teams. The lights were dimmer for introductions with big spotlights picking up the players. A recording of Kate Smith's "God Bless America" was picked up by the crowd that belted out the song with her. More over it was at the Spectrum where the Russians were first booed.



[This message has been edited by Sir Belisarius (edited February 21, 2002).]

 

"Soviets - Evil incarnate"??????
Dude, Americans are really uneducated!
They poke their nose everywhere, including helping Afganistan against Russia, without knowing the truth about all of it. And look what that led to.
Anyway, waaaaaaaay of topic here.

Russia's gonna win the gold, though I'm angry at them for beating my Czechs.

 

I can't believe I'm going to waste my time giving a history lesson, but I get tired of hearing about how bad America is....

You can't look back at the Soviet-Afghan war with a contemporary attitude. Cold War politics was completely different.

In Korea, the Soviets and Chinese supported the North Koreans in the war, and in Vietnam they did the same thing. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, we supported the Mujahaddin (sp?) because they opposed the Soviets. We supported Irag in the 80's because the Soviets supported Iran...It was nothing more than a global chess match - each side checking the other...Just because it could. The same things happened in Nicaragua, Angola, and the Congo.

We (meaning the US) had no particular allegiance with any of the regimes we supported in those instances, except that we knew supporting them would create difficulty for the USSR.

Do you really want to know what America wants? We want people to be free to determine their own destinies, not to be dominated by tyrants that suppress individual rights, and we want to trade goods with other markets in the world. That's it!

I doubt our actions in the past would have happened but for Soviet/Communist aggression during the Cold War. But you can't look at the past in light of the current world order. Things are vastly different since the wall in Berlin came down.

I think that's partially why the terrorism we experience last year came about. Our last president was asleep at the wheel and allowed terror organizations to think that they could operate freely without US interference.

They bombed our embassy's in Somalia and Sudan, he did nothing...They tried to bomb the WTC before, he did nothing...terrorists tried to sink one of our warships in the Gulf, he did nothing...If there is any blame to go around it is our own lack of determination and vigiliance which cost us.

Sorry for the rant - I know this is an international board...but that kind of stuff fires me up!

 

Sir Bel - nice bit on the Flyers!

It was Reagan who coined the term the 'Evil Empire' in reference to the USSR. The Big Red Machine that was the Soviet Red Army teams were great to watch - but have no illusions: they were as much professionals as their NHL counterparts. But because they didn't get paid for playing hockey specifically, they were allowed to play in international competitions and the Olympics - no other professional players from any other country were allowed to. It kind of throws a wrench into the comparisons - other than playing against NHL teams the odd time, they were really professionally trained men playing against college kids from various other countries.

And by the way, I don't want to get too much into the politics, but under Tikhinov (sp?) the Red Army Team became a prison to many of the Russian players. When the first Russians were finally allowed to come over (like members of the famed KLM line) the majority of their NHL earnings went to the USSR and not the players. Players that were national heroes like Slava Fetisov (this years coach) had to literally beg and plead to play elsewhere and fought for years for that right. A number of players (like Alexander Mogilny) still won't play for the Russian teams because of some very bad memories. The players themselves, the former members of those Red Army Teams, refer to the injustices they were subjected to: it's not a North America v. USSR thing.

 

Yep, the hockey servitude was what I was referring to when I was talking about how watching them in action was both beautiful and sad. Gnolyn hit the nail on the head. Of course it goes beyond that as well. MOst of these guys don't have the same sort of memories that Gretzky does about his granmother teaching him and the support his family gave him when CAnadians were selling out hockey arenas to watch some teenage kid. They don't have those memories because they were taken from their families under the threat of force at a young age to learn how to play hockey at government controlled facilities. That's produces good tams but is sad really. They did the same thing with gymnastics etc.

That's all I meant, didn't want to start another "let's talk about how evil America" thread. Just a thought, could you imagine the result if US had similar polocies? How do defensemen Bo Jackson and Herschel Walker sound? Think they might be able to throw a check had they been in hockey program since little children?

Sir Bel, when did the Red Army play Philly? I'm curious if one of the three games the against NHL teams that the Red Army did so well in according to the article was the Ranger game I referred to or if that came later. The game that really put Tretiak on the map was one of the first games the Red Army team played against the NHL, Tretiak was brilliant against the Montreal Canadiens stopping shots from all over the place. Sort of sounds like what he did in the loss to Philly.

I know that the NHL is known for its toughness and it's fun to watch. However, the article doesn't talk about the differences between the international style with the bigger more open ice and what the NHL was then in the process becoming. Teams like the Oilers used to play a much more wide open free wheeling attack and today really everyone has to have some form of the neutral zone trap to succeed come crunch time. I think the game was more fun when Gretzky and company were screaming up and down the ice at break neck speeds. I say open the ice up and let 'em fly again.