Where Olympic hockey once met soccer

If you’re old enough to remember the night, you know exactly where you were when the Americans beat the USSR in hockey back in 1980. (That Miracle on Ice moment is topical now for the 30-year anniversary, and because of the ongoing Olympics.) That will forever be the most remarkable moment I’ll ever witness in sports, for all its upset value in the athletics arena, but also for all its Cold War implications against the mean ol' Red menace. That my “all-time sports moment” won’t be about soccer might be sad, except for this:

I watched the first part of that game but left at the last possible moment for a little appointment I had that night: I was in 8^th grade, scheduled to play an indoor soccer game. (It was at a neighborhood gym, a soccer-futsal hybrid played with walls, augmented by tables turned sideways, and a soccer ball covered in felt. Seriously! Felt. It reduced the bounce factor the way weighted futsal balls do now.)

Done with my match, I hustled home to see the last few minutes of the US-Soviet third period, eating a sandwich in my room, watching on a 13-channel black-and-white TV. It was absolutely amazing.