Miracle on Ice

[underskill]

How did Finland not win a medal if they were in the gold medal game?  The medal ceremony had the Russians and the Swedes in it.

[Jacob 03]

my memory may be a little fuzzy, as i wasn't born yet, but here it goes...

as others pointed out, it was a medal round, not a gold medal game.  the four teams in the medal round were comprised of the top two teams from each feeder group (i think they were designated by color).  ussr and finland came from one group, and usa and sweden came from the other.  the medal round was round-robin play, but the game already played between ussr and finland in the preliminary round and the game between usa and sweden in the prelimary round counted towards the standings.  ussr beat finland and usa tied sweden earlier, so entering the medal round the ussr was 1-0-0,  sweden and usa were 0-0-1, and finland was 0-1-0.  

the united states beat the soviet union and finland to finish the medal round with a 2-0-1 record.  ussr finished with (i believe) a 2-1-0 record.  sweden finished with a 0-1-2 record and finland finished with a 0-2-1 record.  

someone correct me if i got a detail wrong.

(edited: standings)



Post Edited (02-07-04 16:18)

[jtwcornell91]

I think you got all the details right.  The funny thing is that if the US had lost to Finland, the Sweden-USSR game would have been for the gold.  (And hence the Soviets would have won the gold anyway, the way things turned out.)  Also, the USA-USSR game could have ended in a tie, in which case the Soviets would have won the gold with the win over Sweden.  (So imagine if Tikanov had pulled Myshkin for the extra attacker, the Soviets had kept the puck in the zone, and scored to tie it.)

[Keith K \'93]

The above just shows the absolute idiocy of the round-robin medal round system that they were using.  Fortunately it worked out :-) .

It also seems like the end result was the same as if they had played a standard four team tourney, assuming you shuffle the order of the games.  Semis- top team from one pool against 2nd place from the other pool.  Thus USSR over Sweden and USA over Finland.  Then USA over USSR in the final.  Then Sweden beats Finland in a shootout... (I'm assuming the US was actually the top team in their pool. I think we were 5-0-1 but Sweden might have had the same record.)

[Tub(a)]

Most of the Pep Band went to see 'Miracle' at a Ma and Pa joint in West Lebanon, NH on Friday night. It was a very enjoyable movie, I especially liked the Dryden cameo and the brief mention of beating Harvard :-P

[Section A Banshee]

Slightly embarassing: Band members mumbling "sucks" whenever the players announced what schools they were from around the beginning of the film.

[Jeff Hopkins \'82]

Not embarrassing at all.  

They may have beaten the Russians, but four of them were still from arch-rival BU.  Even when they were winning that was alwas in the back of my mind.  I expect to respond the same way.

JH

[jtwcornell91]

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Dugout/4128/65olympicstandings.html

The Swedes finshed first in the "Blue Group".  They were also 4-0-1, we tied each other, and they had a better goal differential.  So we would have played the Soviets in the semis anyway.

Sweden got the bronze over Finland because they tied us rather than losing to us, ending up with 2 points over 1.

[Keith K \'93]

Thnks for the clarification JTW. So my made up scenario doesn't work. Oh well.  And I was making up the bit about the shootout, since they couldn't have played to a tie in my 3rd place game scenario.

[jeh25]

Forgot to ask this in my initial post. Did anybody else notice they had the wrong Germany on the scoreboard? During the game against the West Germans, the scoreboard reads GDR, which is (was?) East Germany.

[Big Ben 03]

The guy doing the review on USCHO caught that, too. You're right. It is East Germany.

[Cornell Fan]

Yeah, I caught this too, but most people probably wouldn't notice unless familiar with the old abbreviations for split Germany BRD/DDR.

[Keith K \'93]

Either the producers/writers missed the difference or else they thought it helped the story a bit to have the good guys play another Soviet block team.  As idiotic as that sounds, I wouldn't put it past Hollywood...

[jeh25]

Keith K '93 wrote:

Either the producers/writers missed the difference or else they thought it helped the story a bit to have the good guys play another Soviet block team.  As idiotic as that sounds, I wouldn't put it past Hollywood...

Nope. Just an oversight. The movie makes it very clear the game is against the West Germans.

[Will]

My traveling companion and I saw Miracle yesterday in South Burlington.  Yeah, it was a pretty damn good movie, and will likely hold the top movie of the year spot (in my mind) for a while to come.  While it's true it succumbed to some of the cliched sports movie moments (the freezeframe ending, the training montages, the whole notion of the team that initially hates each other but comes together in the end), I found myself easily being able to look past all of that.  The story was just that great.  It moved me to tears, literally, and I can't tell you the last time a movie moved me to tears.  So, yeah, everyone see this movie.