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The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team | 
 enlarge | Author: Wayne Coffey
Creator: Jim Craig
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy Used: $0.46
You Save: $23.49 (98%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 160175
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 140004765X
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.9620973
EAN: 9781400047659
ASIN: 140004765X
Publication Date: January 11, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ex-Library. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
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Product Description
Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century. Their “Miracle on Ice” has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to play hockey happily ever after. It is still unbelievable.
The Boys of Winter is an evocative account of the improbable American adventure in Lake Placid, New York. Drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews, Wayne Coffey explores the untold stories of the U.S. upstarts, their Soviet opponents, and the forces that brought them together.
Plagued by the Iran hostage crisis, persistent economic woes, and the ongoing Cold War, the United States battled a pervasive sense of gloom in 1980. And then came the Olympics. Traditionally a playground for the Russian hockey juggernaut and its ever-growing collection of gold medals, an Olympic ice rink seemed an unlikely setting for a Cold War upset. The Russians were experienced professional champions, state-reared and state-supported. The Americans were mostly college kids who had their majors and their stipends and their dreams, a squad that coach Herb Brooks had molded into a team in six months. It was men vs. boys, champions vs. amateurs, communism vs. capitalism.
Coffey casts a fresh eye on this seminal sports event in The Boys of Winter, crafting an intimate look at the team and giving readers an ice-level view of the boys who captivated a country. He details the unusual chemistry of the Americans—formulated by a fiercely determined Brooks—and he seamlessly weaves portraits of the players with the fluid, fast-paced action of the 1980 game itself. Coffey also traces the paths of the players and coaches since that time, examining how the events in Lake Placid affected and directed their lives and investigating what happens after one conquers the world.
But Coffey not only reveals the anatomy of an underdog, he probes the shocked disbelief of the unlikely losers and how it felt to be taken down by such an overlooked opponent. After all, the greatest American sports moment of the century was a Russian calamity, perhaps even more unimaginable in Moscow than in Minnesota or Massachusetts. Coffey deftly balances the joyous American saga with the perspective of the astonished silver medalists.
Told with warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, The Boys of Winter is an intimate, perceptive portrayal of one Friday night in Lake Placid and the enduring power of the extraordinary.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Greatest Olympic Moment Ever June 10, 2008
The book mainly covers the U.S. hockey team's amazing upset of the powerful USSR team, but also provides the background story of just about everybody involved. I'll never forget that game, and reading about it brought back the excitement of that night. I found myself almost cheering outloud when I read about the great plays.
There will never be another Olympic story like this, because now the games are dominated by pro teams. We have "dream teams" instead of teams full of kids who would dream of doing what just about everybody thought was impossible.
The background stories are great and give you a better understanding of what was going on in and before the games to get these guys to the point where they were able to pull off this amazing run.
I don't know of any hockey fan who wouldn't like this book.
A must read for all hockey fans May 14, 2008
Gave this book to my husband for his birthday he read it in 2 days. He said it was one of the best written books about the USA 1980 Team.
 Left Wanting More January 3, 2008
The book is 288 pages with extremely wide margins. To tell this story properly the book should be in the 400-500 page range. I wanted to know more about the American players, the ones who brought home the gold as well as those who, like Her Brooks in 1960, were among the last cuts. What were their feelings after "The Miracle" knowing that they had been that close to being a part of it. I wanted to know more about Brooks himself. His relationship with his wife and kids, did he ever get tired of talking about the 1980 games? I wanted to know more about the Russian players. Is the loss still talked about in Russia? How long did it take the players and hockey in the Soviet Union to get over the upset?
All of these subjects were touched upon, but that's the point--they were only touched upon and nothing was delved into completely so as to peel away layers of a more interesting story.
The 1980 U.S. hockey team is one of my favorite subjects. I found the team back then, and still find their achievement today, a tremendous source of inspiration. I just didn't learn very much new about them in this book.
I couldn't put it down October 29, 2007
The 1980 Olympic hockey game between USA and USSR was the kind of event that you remember where you were, when we won. This book takes you back to that special time, that could be considered a turning point for US/USSR relations. After reading the book, I bought 2 DVDs. The movie about the game and the HBO documentary on the same subject. All were completely enjoyable.
We'll probably never have a team like the young amateurs that played for our country just because the loved the game. ....a special book about some special kids and their coach.
boys of winter .... September 5, 2007
this book is without a doubt the best book i've read on the 1980 usa hockey team . outstanding in every way. mr. coffey takes you inside the locker room of both teams and inside the lives of most usa players .
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