The Boys of Winter is about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team who won the gold in Lake Placid and inspired a nation. With details of the coaches’ and players’ lives (before and after the Olympics) and play-by-play of some of the more memorable moments of the US vs USSR game, you’ll be amazed by the team’s accomplishments, and may even want to watch the 44-year-old game.

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I read The Boys of Winter as part of the 2024 Thoughtful Reading Challenge. July’s challenge is to read a book about sports because the Paris Summer Olympics begin this month. The Boys of Winter definitely got me in the mood and then some! U – S – A! U – S – A!

For those of you too young to remember the event, it happened at a time when Iran was holding 52 Americans hostage, inflation had reached a high of nearly 15%, and the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan. Americans needed a pick-me-up, and they got it from an underdog hockey team.

The US at the time was far from being a hockey powerhouse. In fact, NHL players were predominantly from other countries. In addition, the Olympic athletes at the time were required to be amateurs, which meant the American hockey team was mostly composed of talented college kids who hadn’t signed yet with the NHL. If I recall correctly, the oldest player was 25.

In contrast, the Soviets were essentially professionals who had played together for quite some time. They were fully developed men, some in their thirties. The Soviets had ruled the international hockey world for decades, and some said this was the most talented group of players they had ever assembled.

In Lake Placid, the US had played well in the games leading up to the showdown with the Russians, winning all of their match-ups. They faced the Soviets in the semifinals, a real David versus Goliath event. The Russians had trounced the awestruck Americans recently at Madison Square Garden. Some of the opposing players were hockey legends, and the US players must have been a little intimidated by sharing the ice with them.

It was smart to get those jitters out of the players’ systems prior to the Olympics, because in the semifinal game they came to play. While down for much of the game, they rallied and beat the Soviets 4-3. Celebrations erupted across the United States. But they hadn’t won the gold medal yet; they still had to play Finland, whom they beat handily.

I was a high school freshman when I watched the game in my parents’ basement. I became an instant and enduring fan, and *might* have developed a schoolgirl crush on goaltender Jim Craig.

I was thrilled when, twenty plus years later, team captain Mike Eruzione was the keynote speaker at my employer’s big annual convention.

I’m definitely not alone in my long-time fandom, and those at the convention were certainly not the only ones to hear Mike Eruzione speak. In fact, the highly likeable guy has made a tidy sum of money from speaking engagements, just one of many success stories for the members of the team following the Lake Placid games.

And this brings me to the thing I liked best about The Boys of Winter – the personal stories of the players and coach Herb Brooks.

Many of the players grew up in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where playing hockey on frozen ponds and lakes was simply a way of life. This was before “club sports” became a thing, but playing pickup games all day long seems to have been a better way to practice the game. One player’s dad would even accompany him to a makeshift outdoor rink at night, his truck’s headlights illuminating the ice. These were guys who enjoyed playing for hours at a time.

Speaking of dads, many of the player’s fathers were former star players, former Olympians, and college coaches. Hockey was a family priority and athleticism was in their genetic makeup.

Following the Olympics, many of these young men went on to NHL stardom. Some won Stanley Cups, and some were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. A legacy that I found very interesting is that their success in Lake Placid was eye-opening for NHL teams, who at the time didn’t have a high regard for American players. By beating the Russians on the world stage, Team USA “blew open the door” for other Americans to have successful NHL careers.

As for coach Herb Brooks, he was a stellar coach for whom I would not want to play. Any sport. Ever. He was cold and distant with the players and played mind games that fed their insecurities. But his strategy was brilliant. He wanted to shift away from the traditional style of play to something much more fluid and aggressive. And he conditioned the puck (I couldn’t resist) out of his players so that they had the endurance to keep up with the Soviets, even in the final minutes. His strategy paid off spectacularly!

These details are woven in with short play-by-plays of the game. When a team member was involved in play, the author takes the opportunity to profile him, then he switches back to the game and then profiles another player. At times this structure seemed awkward and a bit confusing, but I don’t know of a better way to structure it.

Overall, I give The Boys of Winter an enthusiastic thumbs up! It’s a well-told story of one of the most notable sports events of the twentieth century and the people who made it happen.

Have you read a book about sports this month? Please share!

**Reminder – August’s challenge is to read a book set during the 1960s.

Want to read another amazing story of Olympic glory? The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown should do the trick! 

And if you enjoyed this The Boys of Winter book review, how about pinning it?