When Faith Skates Onto Impossible Ice

On February 22, 1980, inside the Olympic Fieldhouse in Lake Placid, New York, twenty young Americans lined up against the most dominant hockey team the world had ever seen. The Soviet Union had won four consecutive Olympic gold medals. Their roster was stacked with seasoned veterans who had crushed the NHL All-Stars 6-0 just a year earlier. Thirteen days before the Games, they had dismantled this very American squad 10-3 in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden.…