It’s that time again. The quadrennial event. The Winter Olympics. And you know what that means.
Men’s ice hockey.
That and curling. My most favorite things to watch. But that’s not all we watch.
Before going out with friends, Peter decided to start playing the movie Miracle. Again.
He had no intention of watching the entire film. When I asked him why, he said, “You and Mom will watch it to the end.”
He was right.
He likes the beginning. It’s a montage of news stories from the 1970s. If you were to choose one word to describe it, it would be “malaise.” I lived through it. Betsy lived through it. It’s spot on. Even Peter sees it. And he was born two decades after the events. That’s how effective the beginning is.
Of course, it’s also effective at other things.
Too effective.
And it gets worse every time.
As soon as the young players appear at the hockey training center, the time machine clicks inside my head. I see the faces. I hear their voices. I watch their semi-serious banter.
And I begin to cry silently.
Not for me.
For them.
(Did you hear that melancholy sigh?)
It’s the faces. I know them—or knew them. I knew them all.
Not the actors you see on the screen. But the faces behind the faces. And the voices behind the voices.
I recognize something. Something that pierces deep into my heart. Not the celebrity. Not the history. No, I see the guys I actually knew. The carefree band of brothers who defined my transition from teenage years to adulthood.
For those who don’t know, yes, I met everyone in Miracle in real life. It would be a stretch to say I “knew” them. In fact, I had more in common (and more conversation) with Herb Brooks than with any of his players. There’s an intriguing story behind the whole event, which occurred at an exhibition hockey game in December 1979 between the 1980 US Olympic team and Yale’s Hockey Team (see “Nobody Knew: When ‘The Miracle’ Touched Greater Western New York,” Mendon-Honeoye Fall-Lima Sentinel, February 27, 2020).
Here’s what I remember most about that event. I remember being the fly on the wall (almost literally, as Herb Brooks and I leaned lazily against the paneled wall like the wallflowers we were). I watched the players from both teams interact. In retrospect, I was watching Miracle as it actually happened. The way the players carried themselves. The ordinary confidence. The playful banter. The modest swagger.
They were equals. They weren’t Olympic legends. They weren’t Yale men. They were regular guys. Playing the game they love.
They were like me. Like you. Like your friends. Not trying to be famous. Just wanting to get into the game.
That was life before the Miracle — before history gave it a name.
And that’s the most important takeaway. We weren’t looking to make a splash. We just wanted to be let into the pool.
Such is the lament of the second wave of Baby Boomers—what some call “Generation Jones.” This is the younger half. The quiet half. The half that didn’t burn draft cards. That didn’t march in the streets. But we inherited the aftershocks of our older cohort.
We inherited hand-me-downs, cultural fatigue, and a stereotype of a louder time.
We weren’t aiming to change the world. We just wanted a good job, a good family, and good friends. Just a decent shot.
We just wanted to “play hockey.”
That’s what I see captured in the eyes of those Miracle boys. I look through the actors and to a time in life when the future was wide open, dreams were assumed, and time was abundant.
The burden of age has replaced expectation with reality. We see what really happened. We see whose dreams drifted into oblivion. We see who quietly fought a never-ending battle that would ultimately consume them. We see who never got the shot they hoped for—the one they believed was promised.
And that’s why the movie hurts more. I’m not watching victory. I’m watching expectation. I’m feeling what they thought life would be.
But I’m experiencing it all through a lens that has proven how hard life can be.
Again.
I weep for the Forgotten Boomers.
They weren’t radicals. They weren’t revolutionaries. They didn’t seek headlines.
They were steady. Stalwart. Work-hard-and-go-home.
While others searched for causes, we embraced responsibility.
We didn’t perform conviction. We lived it.
And we didn’t care about what anyone thought. We cared about what we thought of ourselves. And that we remained true to our moral compass.
But here’s the question no one asks: Does a generation that refuses to advertise its virtues get credit for having them? Or is that the actual virtue?
This was us in our early twenties. We stayed under the radar. We didn’t shout. We didn’t protest. We just worked. That was our guiding light.
And that was our Miracle.
Not Lake Placid.
Not Al Michaels.
But the quiet generation inside the noisy one. The ones who raised families, showed up for work, took care of business, didn’t complain, and didn’t ask for applause.
And when the time finally came for us to emerge from our cocoon, we did. We started businesses. We invigorated civic organizations, clubs, and fraternities. When the time came for us to take a larger role in our churches, we did.
In short, when asked to serve, well, that was just part of our job. It wasn’t for the glory. It was something more.
Seeing that youthful optimism and hope in Miracle brings it all back.
Again.
I cry not because it is gone, but because it was real—and so many deserved more.
Ironically, the anticlimax of Miracle speaks to the anticlimax of its real meaning. In the movie, beating the Soviets in the semi-final stands as the high point. Beating Finland for the gold was merely an afterthought.
But gold was the real goal, wasn’t it? The movie doesn’t make it seem that way.
In that moment, as the final credits roll, I realize a greater understanding, a greater appreciation for the boys of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team. They didn’t become legends in the NHL. They became men. They went to work. Many ended up working in the financial services industry—just like the rest of us from that era.
Maybe the Forgotten Boomers were never meant to be the headline. Maybe we were meant to be the backbone.
And maybe the real Miracle wasn’t beating the Soviets. It was who we were before the Miracle, before the world noticed. It was becoming the men we said we would be.
Quietly.
Without cameras.
Without applause.
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