The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team (Hardcover)

by Wayne Coffey (Author), Jim Craig (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this well-written and thoroughly researched story of the 1980 Olympic gold-medal winning hockey team, New York Daily News sportswriter Coffey does much more than simply evoke memories. Expertly using coach Herb Brooks (who died last year in an auto accident) as his focal point, Coffey shows how Brooks, a devoted student of the game, used both psychological tactics and a groundbreaking system predicated on speed and constant motion to defeat the Soviets, a team of highly trained, older and bigger professionals who had dominated the international competition for decades. Over the years, this story of the Americans' victory has become larger than life, replete with drama and drenched in patriotic themes. Coffey's greatest achievement is that his narrative never sinks into melodrama. He captures the rigorous training and the thrill of the games, yet digs deeper, soberly rendering the tenor of the American spirit amid the Iranian hostage crisis and the Cold War, and humanizing and illuminating (rather than caricaturing) the Russian side. For example, although the Russians were a world superpower, they scrounged for Band-Aids and didn't use slap shots because a shortage of quality sticks meant they couldn't risk breaking them—details suggesting the underlying faults of the Soviet regime. Coffey portrays the American side, a diverse collection of amateurs, warts and all, and gives special attention to Brooks, an enigmatic figure who turned a bunch of regional rivals into a tight-knit family whose bond still exists today. Filled with primary interviews and exceptional insight, Coffey's effort should delight more than just hockey fans. Photos.
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–A masterfully told narrative of the team's gold medal victory at Lake Placid, NY. The author's skilled depiction of personalities, breathtaking rendering of action on the ice, talent for capturing colorful regional hotbeds of hockey, and seamless segues between past and present are handled without loss of forward momentum in the story line. The saga of how coach Herb Brooks motivated a roster of 20 amateur, mostly college-age young men to orchestrate victory over an established Soviet team of seasoned, professionally trained skaters offers suspense, heroism, and a dizzying sense of the "full competitive combustion" that is a hallmark of this sport. A portrait of Brooks emerges as an irascible, obstinate, aloof, but savvy coaching genius who elicited singular creativity, grit, and a passionate teamwork ethic from his players. The 1980 setting for the XIII Winter Olympics, well before the age of blockbuster budgets and corporate sponsorship, is described in retrospect as having an "endearing, small-scale quality," where the potential for miraculous athletic performance resided in "a team full of dreamers" rather than a Dream Team. Vignettes of the Americans' hometown roots, as well as selective quotes and insights from members of the Soviet team's skating dynasty, nicely round out the coverage. Bottom line: the sports action is superb, the players' character enhancement and values are deftly related to coaching lessons learned, and the decade perspective is sketched with a fine hand.–Lynn Nutwell, Fairfax City Regional Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st Edition edition (January 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140004765X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400047659
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #383,469 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For fans and non-fans alike, January 18, 2005

By	Craig (Ohio) - See all my reviews

More than just an underdog-achieves-greatness story, this book is a revealing look at the elements that went into that incredible victory in Lake Placid. Little is glossed over, and both Herb Brooks and several players are examined in detail. Brooks is not portrayed as a saint, but his genius in creating a team and a system to win gold shines through.

The Russians are not treated as a bunch of villains, but instead are shown to be just as human as the American boys. The political climate of the time obviously made the victory that much sweeter, and Coffey does an excellent job of setting the victory against that backdrop.

As a hockey fan, it's difficult to think of a greater moment than watching the players and crowd go crazy as those final seconds ticked away - for many of us, it still gives us chills 25 years later. This book does a wonderful job of honoring one of the great moments in American sports history.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars OK, but could have been much better, June 21, 2005

By	Christopher Barat (Owings Mills, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Curiously, though the event has rated an HBO documentary, a made-for-TV movie, and a full-blown theatrical retelling, the complete story of the "Miracle on Ice" has never been put between covers in a real, live book (as opposed to a tome of the "instant paperback" variety). Unfortunately, it still hasn't. Coffey does a good enough job of telling the only story that people seem to care about anymore - the February 22, 1980, shocker that the U.S. hockey team pulled off against the unbeatable Soviets - but he reproduces each and every hockey movement of the game to such an excruciating degree that it's all the harder to forgive him for paying scant attention to the rest of the games that the Americans played to cop the gold. The interstitital mini-biographies of the various players and Coach Herb Brooks (whose 2003 funeral following a fatal car crash serves as the book's curtain-raiser) break the game narrative up to the point that the book is a bit confusing to read. It's an OK effort, but "Do You Believe in Miracles?" (the HBO documentary) and "Miracle" (the Disney feature flick) remain the best reminiscences of this epochal moment in sports history.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A flood of happy memories and a great book, March 11, 2005

By	Eric J. Wittenberg "Civil War Book Maven" (Columbus, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was 18, almost 19, years old that night in February 1980. I was a freshman in college, only a handful of years younger than the talented young men who donned the sweaters of the USA to play in the Lake Placid Olympics. It would be hard to imagine a time when morale was lower, and people felt more negatively about being an American--it was the Carter administration, interest rates were 21%, the Iranian hostage crisis was in full disaster mode, and the Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan. I grew up 65 miles from Three Mile Island, and the accident there had occurred two days after my 18th birthday in March 1979, and nobody knew whether the accident there would have long-term negative effects. Relations with the Soviets were at their nadir, the Cold War was at its height, and I remembered that things in this country were at about their lowest point possible.

And then a miracle occurred.

Herb Brooks and his team of unknown college kids beat the greatest hockey team in the world, perhaps in history. I will never forget--as long as I live--hearing Al Michaels cry out, "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" as time ran out, and seeing the bedlam when the U.S. boys realized what they had accomplished. At that moment, it was okay to be an American again. I think that the resurgence of the Reagan years actually began that night in Lake Placid. It certainly marked the height of amateur hockey in the Olympics--the whole concept of "Dream Teams" was not even yet on the drawing board.

Wayne Coffey has written the definitive book on the Miracle game. It covers the action on the ice in minute detail while also telling us just who these unknown college kids--and their sphinx-like coach--were. Coffey tells us what has happened to these 20 men since their miracle, and discusses the travails and accomplishments, ranging from Mark Wells, who has faced nothing but adversity and illness, to men like Mark Pavelich, a great player who remains as enigmatic today as he was then.

For those who remember that night, or those who want to know more about it, there are two things I can recommend--the 2003 movie Miracle, where Kurt Russell BECAME Herbie Brooks--and this book. It's a quick, easy read by a master of sportswriting craft, and I can't imagine anything ever topping this book. The tragedy, of course, is that Herb Brooks died in a car accident in the summer of 2003, and never got to see either Russell's wonderful portrayal of him, or the reunion of his boys at Salt Lake City--now older, fatter, and grayer--when they lit the Olympic flame and re-captured the joy of their miracle moment.

Buy it. Read it. Cherish the memories. And remember the greatest moment in the history of sports when a bunch of unknown college kids beat the best team on earth.