It's not enough to regard the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team's gold-medal victory at Lake Placid as simply a victory over the world's best amateur hockey teams, including the powerhouse Soviet Union club. No, it stood for something much more than that for Americans. The win put the period at the end of the sentence of a terrible decade in U.S. history and pointed toward a resurgent America.

Celebrating that victory on George Washington's Birthday, few Americans, many obtaining mortgages with rates up to 18 percent, could forecast that the Soviet Union would crumble within the decade, the Berlin Wall would fall, America's economic might would be restored and its military would again become ascendant.

The previous decade was marked by a steadily falling stock market, unemployment, inflation, gas lines, the near collapse of the steel and automobile industries, the Vietnam War and fall of Saigon, President Nixon's sabotage of the 1972 Democratic Party primaries, the Watergate scandal, Nixon's resignation in the face of impeachment; Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon and his failed attempt to "Whip Inflation Now;" Jimmy Carter's "near-fatal" attack by a bunny rabbit and his disastrous July 1979 "national malaise" speech in which he cited a "crisis of confidence" and a national condition of "paralysis, stagnation and drift," due, he said, to our greed, comfort and love of vacations. The next day he called on his Cabinet to resign.

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"Stagflation" was the word coined to describe the unusual confluence of inflation and a stagnant economy. Nixon's description of America as a "pitiful, helpless giant" still rang true.

As bad as the decade was, the events of the previous six months towered over everything. Two days after the national malaise speech, Communists launched their revolution in Nicaragua, toppling the 175-year-old Monroe Doctrine. On Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage, 52 would be held for the next 444 days. On Dec. 27, 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, stunning the overwhelmed Carter whose response was to call for an American boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, thus placing the Lake Placid games in peril.

But the Soviets and teams from their occupied satellite states in Eastern Europe came to Lake Placid, seeing no reason for a retaliatory boycott when they could dominate. The real reason the Soviets came to Lake Placid: Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev loved hockey and the Soviet hockey team to the bottom of his soul -- he'd stay up until dawn listening to games in North America -- and looked forward to routing the Americans on their own soil.

The USSR won 10 gold medals, the most of any country, and six silver and six bronze medals. Their East German allies won nine gold medals and 23 overall. The host Americans were third with six gold medals, four silver and two bronze. Aleksandr Tikhonov won his fourth gold medal in the biathlon relay and Nikolay Zimyatov earned three gold medals in cross-country skiing. Eric Heiden won all five speed skating events for the other American gold medals.

Hope, plus incredible conditioning and a battle plan devised by American coach Herb Brooks was all the U.S. took into the game against the heavily favored Soviets.

The 1960 gold-medal victory, in which the U.S. unseated the Soviets who won gold in their first Olympic hockey appearance in 1956, was a distant memory and few Americans saw much of the 1972 silver medal-winning team that played its games in the early morning hours halfway around the world in Sapporo, Japan. The U.S. finished out of the medal ceremony in 1964, 1968 and 1976, while the Soviets won gold in every Olympics since 1964. It was widely agreed they were bringing their best team ever to Lake Placid with stars like goalie Vladislav Tretiak, defensemen Alexei Kasatonov, Valery Vasiliev, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, Slava Fetisov and Sergei Starikov and forwards like captain Boris Mikhailov, Valeri Kharlamov, Vladimir Krutov, Sergei Makarov and Helmut Balderis.

The Soviets started with a 16-0 win over Japan, beat the Netherlands, 17-4 and downed Poland, 8-1. Americans watched in disappointment as the U.S. tied Sweden, 2-2, but were aroused by the 7-3 win over Czechoslovakia two days later. Victories over Norway, Romania and West Germany followed before the much-anticipated meeting with the Soviets. Hope was all the Americans had after a 10-3 loss to the Soviets in Madison Square Garden a few days before the Olympics began.

Hope, plus incredible conditioning and a battle plan devised by American coach Herb Brooks to take the play to the Soviets instead of trying to play defensively against them, as most rivals had unsuccessfully tried.

"You were born to play this game," Herb Brooks told his team before the Soviet game. "You were meant to be here."

"We were really nervous and excited to play the Soviets in Madison Square Garden and we got smacked in front of everybody," recalled Jack O'Callahan. "I don't know why, but we woke up the next morning very relaxed. For some reason, it seemed to take the pressure off."

Brooks had passed over many leading American amateur players, including Les Auge, Jack Hughes, Ralph Cox, Doug Woog and Gary Ross in favor of a group of younger players he believed could handle his intensive conditioning program and would buy into his plan of attack. They had six months to learn a hybrid Soviet-European-North American system they had never played.

The Soviets scored first, but Buzz Schneider tied it with a slap shot. Then the Russians scored again and were headed for the dressing room with the lead when Mark Johnson beat Tretiak with one second remaining in the first period. When the teams returned, Tikhonov had replaced Tretiak with Vladimir Myshkin, who would lead the Soviets to the gold medal at Sarajevo in 1984, but not at Lake Placid.

"Gentlemen, they just benched the best goaltender in the world," Brooks told his team. Ken Dryden, the hero of the 1971 Stanley Cup and then recently retired from the NHL, was an ABC analyst on the broadcast. He said later that he thought Tretiak was off his game throughout the tournament.

The Soviets led 3-2 in the third period when Dave Silk scored the tying goal, two minutes before captain Mike Eruzione cashed in the game winner. About seven minutes remained and the Soviets challenged repeatedly but couldn't beat American goalie Jim Craig. The Americans' superior conditioning helped keep the wolf at bay."

As the final seconds wound down, ABC announcer Al Michaels voiced the words forever associated with the game, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

Two days later, the U.S. team came from behind again to defeat Finland and won the gold medal.

The victories were enough for the American players, who were not caught up in the international politics.

"We were just hockey players who wanted to win and we weren't thinking about the politics," Rob McClanahan said. "We knew the Soviets were good and we just wanted to beat them."

"To us, it was just a hockey game," Schneider said. "Honestly, we were shooting for third, but then we beat the Czechs who were supposed to be the second-best team. Mentally, Herb had us ready and physically, we were over the top. There's no question that we were the best-conditioned team."

"You were born to play this game," Brooks told his team before the Soviet game. "You were meant to be here."

Many of the players went on to careers in the NHL, including Ken Morrow who won the first of four Stanley Cups with the New York Islanders a few months later. Mike Ramsay, the youngest member of the team, would play 17 NHL seasons and is assistant coach of the Minnesota Wild. Neal Broten played in two Stanley Cup Finals before winning with New Jersey in 1995. Brooks would coach three NHL teams. Eruzione never played another game or watched the video of the 1980 Olympics.

"Just because I'd be afraid a buddy would come over and see me and tell me to get over myself," he laughed.

As the final seconds wound down, ABC announcer Al Michaels voiced the words forever associated with the game, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

The 1980 U.S. Olympic team, with position, hometown and college attended: