My opinion: the USMNT winning the world cup is the ONLY possible event that can rival the victorious run of the 1980 U.S. Men's Olympic Hockey team. Any other ideas?
Nothing will top that. The Miracle on Ice had so many things involved that even a World Cup win won't have. We have served notice and have players playing in the top leagues in the world. If we win the World Cup, every guy on that team will be playing pro soccer the next year. Some guys on the 80 hockey team never even played minor league hockey.
Re: Re: What will be the next "Miracle on Ice"? Understood. However you are comparing the two strand by strand. The two will NEVER never matchup point by point. "The Miracle On Ice" is regarded by MANY as the greatest moment is American Sports history. Winning the World Cup has that same potential; especially for a country that for decades has been known to be an underachiever and the laughing stock of the sport. Let me re-ask the question: "Will the USMNT winning the World Cup surpass "The Miracle on Ice" as the greatest achievement/moment in American Sports history?"
In a sporting achievement sense,no. The way it may surpass the MOI is in finally pushing pro soccer into the mainstream of sporting acceptance .Hockey was a semi-major sport,largely unnoticed outside of a few Northern states,until the 80s. BTW,you do know that the '80 gold was our SECOND in Olympic hockey?And we had to beat Canada and the USSR to do it?So it's a repeat.
Its also much easier to fix the winter olympics in the United States(Lake Placid) than the World Cup. Even though FIFA is almost as shady as the IOC
Dude....it already happened. US women beating the Canadian women at the Curling World Championship a few weeks ago. I'm serious, just ask any canadian how big that was.
silly cubbies THE CUBS ha, Boston Red Sox winning the world series, NEW ENGLAND would be burnt to the ground.
I think the USMNT's chance at performing their own miracle was this past World Cup. Why? They came out of nowhere into the American field of view. People who had bashed/ignored soccer were in some way rooting for the US to beat Germany. Now that we've appeared as a steadily rising blip on the radar, Miracle on Grass won't happen. Though I don't mind dreaming of it.
Although a lot of MNT fans would like to think so, winning the WC was a vision/goal started at the very latest in '94. All of our players are professionals, so it wouldn't be quite the same. If you put a college all-star team together to go to the WC and they won, now that's an acheivement similar to the one your questioning. And this is coming from a HUGE MNT fan!
Once you get past the actual hockey game, there were several subplots to help explain why the game was huge... an amateur (or college all-star) team from the US vs. one of the most dominate teams in the world...the Soviet National Hockey Team you have the two world superpowers...the Soviet Union vs. the United States at the height of the Cold War the winter games occurring only weeks after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, during the Iran hostage crisis & around the time President Carter boycotts the summer olympic's in Moscow. Based on what's been said above, I don't beleive the US winning the world cup would compare with the "Mircle on Ice" because of the "other" factors involved...Unless an all MLS team beats Brazil (which must first turn into the new "Evil Empire") in the semi-finals and then go on to beat...I don't know...a very good second tier team in the finals... let's say Belgium (which I picked for no particular reason...). Then after all of the fanfare wears off...we'll wait for a blockbuster transfer (Gretszky from Edmonton to LA) to spur on the grown of soccer in the US. Most people forget that the US didn't beat the Soviet Union in the finals, there was still another game to be won & the NHL didn't really take off until the late '80's or early 90's...after the big trade that helped kick off the southern expansion of hockey (i.e. San Jose, Dallas, Miami, Tampa Bay, Phoenix, etc)