Whenever Herb Brooks talks about the original Miracle On Ice -- the first one, in 1960, the one he wasn't a part of -- he uses a familiar punch line. Brooks was a player then, the last one cut from the 1960 U.S. men's Olympic hockey team that unexpectedly won a gold medal at Squaw Valley.
After the result was in and the Americans had registered one of the biggest upsets in Olympic history, Brooks says his father told him, " 'Well, it looks like the coach cut the right guy, didn't he?'
"It was one of those tough love things," Brooks was explaining yesterday.
It also turned the Olympics into something of an obsession for Brooks, who later played for the United States in the 1964 and 1968 Olympics. Twelve years after his final appearance as a player, Brooks coached the 1980 U.S. Olympic team to the gold medal, a team that is still so front and centre in the American public consciousness that the players collectively lit the Olympic torch to open the 2002 Winter Games.
If you count Brooks's appearance as coach of the 1998 French team, this will be his fifth Winter Olympics and second behind the bench as the U.S. coach. According to Brooks, American players were not viable candidates to play in the six-team, pre-1967 National Hockey League, so the Olympics became their Stanley Cup.
"It's what we all aspired to," Brooks said.
At 64, at a time in his life when others wouldn't take on the challenge of coaching the U.S. team on home soil, Brooks is aspiring to the Olympics again. Charming and gregarious, Brooks held a one-hour news conference yesterday, four days in advance of the U.S. team's tournament-opening game against Finland.
Just before taking his place on the podium, Brooks sat among a group of Canadian reporters and told a story about the movie they made after the Miracle On Ice in which actor Karl Malden played Brooks.
"My wife said she wanted Robert Redford to play me," Brooks said with a smile, "but only if she could play herself."
By winning the gold medal in 1980, the U.S. men's team opened many doors for American-born players, and now, about 22 years later, some of the top hockey-playing talent in the world emerges from the United States.
For this, Brooks and his band of eager collegians deserve much of the credit. They attracted attention to a game that was mostly a northern curiosity up to that point, making it cool for good athletes to bypass the more traditional sports of football, basketball and baseball to play hockey.
Unlike 1980, when Brooks spent seven months turning college players into seasoned professional-like players, his challenge in 2002 will be different -- "we'll be trying to pull it out as opposed to putting it in," he said.
"I'm not a great fan of keeping it simple just for the sake of keeping it simple. That's a backhanded slap at the players -- that they're not capable of other things. They're intelligent and talented people. I think they can reach out and adhere to different things, but time is against us.
"We'll try to find a game plan that fits us, and a lot of this, we'll have to do on the fly. It'll be a challenge for all of us, in the management side, to get things done under these circumstances. It's going to be tougher on the Canadians and Americans. We play more of a north-south game, whereas for the Europeans, it's like old-home week when they get on that big ice.
"As good as these Europeans are in the NHL as individual players, once they all get together, you're going to say, 'Wow.' They'll be a sight to behold and a formidable opposition. But we will find that common denominator."
The U.S. team held a five-day orientation camp in September and hammered out some philosophical issues -- mainly how to play on the larger ice, with the international rules. Brooks is a great believer in the esthetics of hockey. At one point yesterday, he talked of the greatest failing of the NHL: that it doesn't recognize the fact that it is primarily an entertainment industry.
"We've got tremendous athletes," he said. "I don't understand why we're taking their abilities away from them and putting [fans]to sleep."
Brooks admitted to exchanging letters with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman over ways to make the game more exciting, noting that the National Basketball Association and the National Football League both instituted rule changes over the years to make their games more entertaining.
"You have to do something to give the game back to the players," Brooks said. "So I got a reply that said, 'Consider yourself considered.' "
Despite the fact that the United States will be playing at home, Brooks said he considers Canada the favourite.
"The pressure's on Canada," Brooks said. "Canada hasn't won in 50 years -- and I say that with all due respect. But I don't think there is any home-country advantage. The Europeans who play in the NHL are used to this country. It isn't a foreign country for anybody, especially in the top six."
And if it comes down to a shootout, who would Brooks use? He wouldn't say, but added slyly, "I know if I had Mr. Gretzky. . . " eduhatschek@globeandmail.ca