S2E10: Mike Eruzione

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About Our Guest

Mike Eruzione, one of the most recognizable names in Olympic history, serves as the director of special outreach at his alma mater, Boston University.  In this role, Eruzione travels the country to meet with alumni and donors, host University events and solicit leadership support for Terrier Athletics.

Eruzione captained the 1980 United States Olympic Hockey Team to its Gold Medal victory in Lake Placid, N.Y. His goal against the Soviet Union to clinch the “Miracle on Ice” victory is one of the most iconic sports moments of all time. ESPN’s SportsCenter officially recognized it in 2008 as the No. 1 greatest sports highlight, and Sports Illustrated has named it the No. 1 sports moment of the 20th century.

His game-winning goal advanced the team to the Gold Medal Game, in which the U.S. defeated Finland. Since the 1980 Winter Olympics, Eruzione and his teammates have received numerous honors, including being inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame and being featured in the hit Disney movie, “Miracle.”

Eruzione graduated from BU’s School of Education in 1977. While attending Boston University, he captained the men’s ice hockey team his senior year and finished his college career as the third-leading scorer in Terrier history. During his tenure, BU won four ECAC titles.

After his playing days, Eruzione was an assistant coach with the men’s ice hockey program, working under his college coach, Jack Parker, during the Terriers’ 1995 national championship season.

A powerful motivational speaker, Eruzione is actively involved with fundraising events for the Olympic Committee as well as numerous charitable and youth organizations. He was inducted into the Boston University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1983.

He resides in his hometown of Winthrop with his wife and their three children.

-goterriers.com

Learn more about Mike at goterriers.com or follow him on Social Media

Episode transcript (generated by AI):

Voice over (male) (00:00):
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Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (00:06):
People of listening,

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(00:28):
The American Hero Show featuring Travis Mills from generals to grandparents, superheroes, to superintendents, heroes come in all shapes and sizes. This is the American Hero Show.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (00:52):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, peoples of listening, all you champions out there. Thank you so much for tuning in once again to the American Hero Show. I’m just so fired up, Tim, because this man is a legend amongst people, but he’s a legend among legends. You have the people that are so amazing and people that stick out above those

Tim Eisenhart (01:13):
People like you just have to say one name and you know exactly who everybody knows who you’re talking about.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (01:19):
I don’t think if you say Mike, everybody know there’s a lot of mics out there, Tim.

Tim Eisenhart (01:22):
You know, you’re right. There are a lot of Mikes, but his last name is synonymous with a period of time, not just a single event, but a period of time. And that’s Mike Eruzione.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (01:33):
Mike Eruzione. Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have a wonderful interview. Mike, welcome to the show You champion. How’s your day going?

Mike Eruzione (01:40):
It’s going great, Tim. Travis, thank you very much. Thanks for having me on.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (01:43):
Well, absolutely. So I’m here to ask the hard questions. Tim loves up the softballs and we’re going to go from there, but we appreciate you taking time, talking with us, and obviously, I believe you probably told the story of what you went through and battled against and how you guys overcame all the odds and obstacles. Let’s back it up a little bit. Where are you from originally, sir?

Mike Eruzione (02:03):
I am from, and still from a place called Winthrop, Massachusetts. It’s a little place right inside of the city of Boston, right near Logan Airport. I’ve lived here my whole life and actually it’s a little kind of hidden gem, I call it. It’s a little peninsula town that sits behind the airport. My family’s here, my daughter lives down the street. My son lives directly behind me. My mother-in-Law lives around the corner. My cousin lives two houses away. My brother’s down the street. So it’s a great little town that I’ve been with forever. Been here forever and my wife’s from here as well.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (02:36):
Well, that sounds like a lot of fun. Family get togethers, a lot of block parties.

Mike Eruzione (02:39):
Well, my dad was born on the 4th of July, so he’s no longer with us, but we always have a 4th of July party and his anywhere from 70 to a hundred people and basically they’re all relatives, so it’s a pretty good vash.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (02:51):
Well, that’s awesome. So 4th of July and

Mike Eruzione (02:52):
It’s in my backyard, so it’s pretty good. I don’t have to go far.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (02:55):
Well, Tim, we didn’t get the invite but didn’t get disinvited and we know exactly where to go back.

Tim Eisenhart (03:01):
He knows us now, so we can show up. You’ll get

Mike Eruzione (03:03):
It next year, we can

Tim Eisenhart (03:04):
Show. Well, that’s right.

Mike Eruzione (03:05):
It’s Covid related. That’s why he couldn’t come last year.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (03:07):
Okay, well, okay, good.

Mike Eruzione (03:09):
Blame everything on Blame everything on Covid. There

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (03:12):
It is. There it is. Now, did you grow up realizing you’re going to be so awesome at hockey?

Mike Eruzione (03:16):
No, I was a football baseball player. Hockey was something I just kind of did in the wintertime when I was a kid, there were no rinks in my hometown. They used to freeze the tennis courts down the street from where I lived, and as a young kid, I’d get my sister’s white figure skates because I didn’t have high skates at the time. And I would go down there, my friends would go down there, and then it’s something my parents saw that I wanted to do. In those days, you could save a s and h green stamps. So if you remember those. And my mom saved up enough stamps one day and I came home and there was a pair of hide ice skates on the table. And then I thought, you know what? I might as well play hockey in the winter. So I played hockey in the winter, but probably played more baseball in my life than anything in high school. Football was my passion. I loved football, but ended up being a hockey player.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (04:01):
So hear that everybody listening, even if you want to be in the league, you’re not gifted enough. This man was gifted. He didn’t even like hockey, didn’t even like it. He just played it. It was there. No, I feel the same way. I was probably better at baseball. I had more options in college for baseball, and I chose football, and then I played this neat position called Sideline, and I was so good. I played the whole season, Mike, the whole season right

Tim Eisenhart (04:23):
There. Started,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (04:24):
Yeah, started,

Tim Eisenhart (04:26):
Finished, finished.

Mike Eruzione (04:28):
I wanted to play and I wanted to go to University of New Hampshire and play football, hockey and baseball. But the hockey coach didn’t think I was the division one player, so actually ended up at Merrimack College for a week. I was going to go there, then ended up at Boston University. So things worked out pretty well,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (04:45):
I would say. So I And do you rub it in that coach’s face every day or No, I’m just kidding. You’re humble. You’re a humble

Mike Eruzione (04:51):
Champion. I played against them for four years, so he saw enough of me.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (04:54):
That’s awesome. So you went to college and you played all sports or just hockey? No,

Mike Eruzione (05:01):
Well, actually after high school I went just to give thee people the shout out. I went to Burke Academy for a year after I got out of high school. Then I went into Boston University, and my first two years I played, we had a club, kind of a club baseball team at the time, and I played a little baseball, but ended up going to Europe with the US national team for hockey and ended up leaving the baseball team and ended up just not playing any more baseball at Boston University, but focused on hockey and played basically baseball in the summertime.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (05:27):
No, that’s awesome. So

Tim Eisenhart (05:29):
I read your book, Mike, it’s outstanding. Oh, thank you. I mean, I love the hockey part. I’ve been a baseball player my whole life. I played baseball in college and have been coaching since I left. But one of the cool stories outside of the sports stuff that you kept coming back to was Jeep, your dad.

Mike Eruzione (05:45):
Yeah. He was a character.

Tim Eisenhart (05:47):
He was your biggest fan. Was he not your biggest fan?

Mike Eruzione (05:50):
He was pretty special, yeah, he was unique at all the games that I played. He didn’t miss many even though he worked three jobs. But yeah, he probably was my biggest fan. And I remember I did an interview one time after the Olympics, and my mom was a great lady. Obviously you stay home and take care of six kids. My dad, like I said, worked three jobs and a reporter asked my mother one time, you must be proud of your son. And my mother’s answer was, I’m proud of all my children. And it was a great answer. But I think if you asked my dad, he might’ve said, no, Michael’s great. I love my Michael. He had the other siblings, he had throw the other siblings right under the bus.

Tim Eisenhart (06:26):
He told a great story in the book where Coach Brooks had closed practices. Right. Nobody was allowed into practices. And you told a story about you heard somebody whistle from the sidelines during practice, and there was your dad with a six pack and an open one in one hand, and he was whistling at you going, Mike,

Mike Eruzione (06:45):
My high school football coach. And the practice was closed, but Herb, herb liked my father. Maybe he related to my dad, and I think Herb’s dad was similar to my dad, a working class man, and knew my dad was just proud of his son and proud of what he was doing and playing on the Olympic team. So he just left him alone. I said, herb, if you want, I’ll tell him to leave. He goes, no, no, he’s fine. He can stay up there. He just sat and watched practice and that’s fantastic. Had a couple of beers. It was just typical him.

Tim Eisenhart (07:09):
That’s great. The other guy that I thought it sounded like, and you can probably expand on this a little bit, and maybe a guy that moved your career in a real positive direction, was Coach Parker. Is that true?

Mike Eruzione (07:19):
Oh, well, if it wasn’t for Jack Parker, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I mentioned to you I wanted to go to UNH and obviously they weren’t interested. So I was going to go to Merrimack College at the time in the summer. I didn’t play hockey in the summer. I played baseball in the summer and I got a phone call from a friend of mine said, look, a bunch of the guys went to the Cape for the weekend. We need some players. Do you want to play in the game? I said, you need a player, I’ll play. I played in the game, and it turned out the guy named Jack Parker was refereeing the game. Jack was the assistant coach at Boston University, and after the game, Jack asked me where I was going school, and I said, I’m going to Merrimack. He goes, well, I remember you from high school. Where’d you go last year? I said, I went to Burwick Academy. He goes, you played under Pop Whale? And I said, yeah, well, pop Whalen actually played at Boston University. I think Pop played in the first bean pot. And he goes, well, we had a kid from Canada decided not to come. Would you like to come to Boston University? And I went, yeah, I think so.

Tim Eisenhart (08:13):
So

Mike Eruzione (08:14):
I went to Boston University and Jack was the assistant coach at the time, and the head coach knew nothing about me, didn’t know me from Adam. So I was on the team and I was center in the fourth line and playing some shifts and some games. And around Christmas, Leon Abbott was the head coach. He got fired and Jack Parker became the head coach. So I went from centering the fourth line to playing left wing on the second line and led our team in goal scoring my freshman year. So if I had never played in the summer league game and had never met Jack Parker, I clearly wouldn’t have made an Olympic team six years later, so we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So yes, Jack Parker’s a big part of my life.

Voice over (male) (08:48):
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Voice over (female) (09:10):
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Voice over (male) (09:32):
And now the conversation continues with Travis and Tim.

Tim Eisenhart (09:36):
Yeah, it seems like there was a lot of pieces that fell into place for you at the right time and led you to that US team. If one of those pieces falls out of place, it’s a totally different Yeah, totally different thing.

Mike Eruzione (09:49):
We’re not having this conversation today.

Tim Eisenhart (09:52):
You’re painting bridges and doing whatever and around with them. That’s right. That’s

Mike Eruzione (09:56):
Right. I was a bridge painter. Yeah,

Tim Eisenhart (09:58):
What a great story. What a great book. And I really appreciate the way you speak about your teammates and your coaches. And one of the things I wanted to ask you, sorry, Trav, I’m kind of bog your conversation here. I was going

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (10:09):
To say, what’s your favorite food? Really hard hitting stuff, but no, Tim’s more intellectual than me. He’s so much smarter than me. Everybody knows that

Tim Eisenhart (10:17):
When you became a captain, that story was kind of like, you kind of just brushed by it in your book, but it was, you guys had voted for a team captain and a lot of guys, you were voting for somebody out west and you thought they would do a good job. And then coach just kind of said, yeah, Mike’s going to captain the team. And then he moved on really quick to the next subject. How did that hit you when you realized that you were going to be the leader of this group of guys?

Mike Eruzione (10:41):
And I’ve said this for the last 42 years, it wasn’t a big deal to me. I’ve always said I was a captain amongst captains. If you looked at my teammates in the Olympic team, I think seven of ’em or eight of them were captains of their college teams, and every one of them was captain of their high school teams. So a captain, like I said, amongst captains, these guys aren’t great players. They’re great people, great leaders, and it was very easy to be captain of a team of captains. The thing for me was to be myself and not try to change and be different like, oh, oh my God, I’m the captain. No, it was just like continue to do the things that my teammates looked at me as being a good teammate, a good friend, a good leader, somebody they respected, somebody they trusted. And those were the qualities I think I had. And I think my teammates saw that in me, and I’m hoping that even 42 years later, they still see that

Tim Eisenhart (11:30):
What an honor,

Mike Eruzione (11:32):
I’m no better and no bigger than them. I just was fortunate to be the captain, but I never took it as I was better, more important.

Tim Eisenhart (11:40):
Yeah, herb Brooks was tough. I mean, he was kind of tough to play for because he,

Mike Eruzione (11:44):
Yeah, that’s how coaches coached in the eighties though. I mean, it was demanding. Challenged. Jack Parker was the same way. Jack was hard to play for, and I’ve always told people, herb was your dad, you know, love your dad, but sometimes you hate your dad. He makes you do things you don’t want to do. And that was Herb. But again, I’ll go back to what I said earlier about what I look at things. We trusted Herb and we respected Herb, and as a coach, if you don’t have players that trust you and respect you, you’re not going to win. Sure. And as hard as he was, we still understood that he was in charge and do the things that he needed us to do in order to be successful.

Tim Eisenhart (12:18):
Did you find yourself appreciating his coaching methods and his leadership more later on after the hoopla was done and everything kind of calmed down for you? No, I think, I don’t even know. It probably hasn’t calmed down for you, but

Mike Eruzione (12:30):
No, it hasn’t calmed down. No. I still think I remember and learned a lot from some of the things that Herb challenged us with and taught us with. But again, I’ll go back to the same thing with Coach Parker, or same thing with my high school coaches. Those were the people that I admired and respected growing up, that they were in charge, they were the coaches, those are the people you listened to. And I was fortunate to have football, baseball, hockey coaches, pop oil at Burrick Academy, and obviously Jack and Herb coaches that taught you the importance of the values and the hard work that you had to do in order to be successful. And similar qualities that my dad always talked to me about. My dad always talked to me about working hard. He never talked about being lucky or being successful. We didn’t grow up with any money, but we grew up with a lot of love and we grew up with a lot of respect, and we grew up with a lot of values that are so important, and those are things that are immeasurable, and those are things that Herb and I think brought and assured me.

(13:26):
They all kind of assured me of the things that my dad and mom always taught me about hard work and determination and in order to be successful, how hard you have to work to do that. So I was fortunate, again, like I said, to have coaches that just reinforce the values that I was taught at a young age.

Tim Eisenhart (13:40):
Would the younger you make today’s team?

Mike Eruzione (13:43):
No. No. They were a lot better now than I was.

Tim Eisenhart (13:47):
The game’s changed, huh? Oh,

Mike Eruzione (13:48):
They’re so good now. Somebody asked me would this year’s Olympic team beat the 1980 Olympic team, and I said, of course, I’m 67, I can’t play anymore.

Tim Eisenhart (13:58):
Yeah,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (13:58):
Exactly. I mean, I think you got it still.

Tim Eisenhart (14:01):
No,

Mike Eruzione (14:01):
The players today are so good.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (14:03):
Now, the thing I think is lost on a lot of people nowadays is that structure and that character building and morale being with the whole team, because when I was in high school, we played hard, but it wasn’t the same feeling. There’s some kids that just didn’t want to listen. Their parents didn’t really stick up, they weren’t there for them. Whereas I feel like back in the time when you were playing, your parents were like the coach, say it, do it. And now it seems like players like coach is being mean to me, and they’re like, everybody should play. I hate that, to be honest with you. I get everybody should play when they’re younger, but not when they get older. The best should play.

Mike Eruzione (14:40):
Yeah, everybody gets a trophy. It’s very different now. And I help out with our high school team. I’ve been doing it for, well since 1980. I get on and the kids are great kids, good kids. Some kids, they want structure, they want discipline. But it is a different atmosphere. Now, don’t yell at Johnny. If you do, you’re going to be in trouble or don’t say anything that might offend somebody. And I’m in the locker room with these high school kids and I know what they’re like, and they do like structure. They do like to be disciplined. They do like to have rules and follow those rules, but sometimes you got to be careful of what you do and what you say. And it is, it’s a different world that we’re living in, and I get it. I understand it. It’s not easy being a kid. I wouldn’t want to be a kid today. I liked it when there was no social media. There was no Facebook or Twitter or whatever. Hell, everything’s on.

Tim Eisenhart (15:29):
That’s right.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (15:30):
No cameras at parties.

Mike Eruzione (15:32):
When I came home from school and I went out and played, I went out and played till the street. Mom, I’ll be home when the streetlights come on, but it is different. Kids can’t do that today. There’s a lot of things going on out in the world that we didn’t have to deal with then. So I get grandkids now. So you hug them and love them and take care of ’em and watch over ’em and understand that they live in a different society, a different world than the world that I lived in. I mean, a while ago. It’s a funny story. I don’t know how to share my screen. My 8-year-old grandson said, Papa, this is how you share your screen. I’m like, really? How do I get on Google? I mean, they’re living in a world that we never even saw or knew existed.

Tim Eisenhart (16:13):
Can you imagine what it would have looked like if you guys were doing what you were doing back then, if the media was different, like the Facebook and Instagram and all of the stuff that’s around today that is so readily available? Can you imagine what that would’ve look like?

Mike Eruzione (16:28):
Yeah. Well, people would’ve known we beat the Soviets. Oh my God. People would’ve known. We beat the Soviets right away instead of tape delay. The game was tape delayed and they saw it at eight o’clock at night, but three TV stations. Then again, hearing ’em sounding like my father when I was a kid, I used to walk uphill to school both ways. So it’s different. So you got to watch over ’em. You got to watch over your grandkids, you watch over your kids closer. There’s a lot of challenges out there. There’s a lot of issues out there that we never had to deal with. So I think parenting is a lot more difficult now than it was when my parents were around. Like I said, I’d come home from school and I’d go out and play and come home at six o’clock at night. That would be it.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (17:11):
Well, here’s a question for you. Okay, I have a gripe because my mom and dad believe were a lot, probably your parents and old school. We played outside during the summers. We weren’t allowed to be in the house when it got to be like eight in the morning. You had to be outside. We had to do our chores and then just be outside, find something to do. But as hard as my parents were, they’re like the softest people when it comes to my kids. And I’m just like, I’m like, how is that fair? Are you the same guy? Are you the same guy as my dad right now? Because my dad irritates me. They’re like, what? You gave my son, Dax, you gave him ice cream for breakfast? Well, it’s what he wanted.

Mike Eruzione (17:49):
When I saw my father with my kids, I’d go, is that the same guy that I lived with? And now the same thing. My grandkids come over, you want, I got a box of M and MSM right over there right now. And they come in, the first thing they do is they put their hand in the m and ms and my wife makes some breakfast and lunch. And especially now, my daughter works and her husband is a police officer, so he works. So the kids are here all the time, and they’re like the kings of the court. I walk in, my grandson’s lying on my chair and my recliner, and I’ll go, that’s Papa’s chair. No, no papa. I was here first. All right, you can have the chair. My dad, if I did that to my father, he’d have picked me up and thrown me off the chair and said, that’s my chair, and get your ass off it and sit over there. But now I just say, all right, you can have puppet’s chair. Yeah,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (18:35):
I have had that happen. Yeah, it’s ridiculous. I tell you what, and now I’m the guy running around saying, shut the lights off. What are you leaving this light on for? Oh yeah. Who didn’t put the milk away? Who didn’t change the toilet paper roll. And I just can’t believe that I’m that guy. You are that guy too.

Mike Eruzione (18:50):
You became your father. I

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (18:51):
Did. I’m like those Geico commercials, I guess. Yeah, your dad is way nicer than you. So I tell you what, you’ve told your story about winning and all that so much, but what are things that you haven’t told maybe as much or as often, what was it really that brought you guys together as a team that was there any, I mean, game winning goal, right? Everybody not to be weird and call you out on the game winning goal. I knowbody played hard, but what was the point in the game where you’re like, okay, we’re going to do this. Or did you guys go in believing it the whole time even though everyone doubted you? Well, I

Mike Eruzione (19:18):
Think, and first of all, as an athlete, if you think you’re going to lose, you probably will. So we knew it was going to be hard. We knew it was going to be difficult. We knew it was going to be challenging, but that’s why you play the game. And I know that’s an old school statement, but that is if you’re going to lose, why even show up? So we felt we had to play the best that we could, and we did and had been playing well leading up to that. So our confidence level was really high. We were playing extremely well. We had beaten one country that was supposed to beat us. We blew ’em out of the building, and then we tied Sweden and we had a great win against West Germany. Germany after being behind by two goals, our confidence level was great.

(19:55):
Going into the game, you feel let’s play and see what happens. And as the game progressed, we were never behind by two goals or three goals. If we got behind by two or three, the game’s over, see you later. But it stayed the way we needed it to stay. One, nothing. 2, 1, 3, 2, 3, 3, 4, 3. And next thing you know the buzzer sounds and you win. That’s really how you looked at it. I don’t want to go like Bill Belichick ish, but it really was one game at a time. One play at a time, one shift at a time, and just go out and do your job, do the things that we had trained for for six months. I noticed it recently. I’ve only seen the game. I think I saw the game twice. It was a while ago. And I saw a quote from Herb and it said, herb, he says, play your game.

(20:43):
Play your game. And that’s what he said throughout the Olympic games, play your game. We were never worried about what other teams were doing. We needed to worry about what we needed to do in order to win. So continue to play your game. Do the things we had done all year, do the things we were doing throughout the Olympic Games. We’d been successful. So why change? If we fell behind a couple of goals, then we maybe would’ve had to change and do things differently. But the fact that the game stayed the way we needed to stay enabled us to win four to three. If they scored five, we weren’t scoring six. They were averaging, I think six or seven goals a game during the Olympics. So to hold them were only three was huge for us because like I said, if they scored five, we weren’t scoring six. And if they scored four, I don’t know if we were going to score five. So everything worked out the way we needed it to.

Voice over (male) (21:30):
The conversation continues in moments.

Voice over (female) (21:33):
The American Hero Show is brought to you by foundation’s, investment advisors, benefiting the Travis Mills Foundation. You’ve worked your entire life and now is the time to plan for the unknown. Just like what happened to Travis, you never know what life might throw at you. And things can change quickly, even if you have a plan. Sometimes things happen that you can’t plan for. Foundation’s, investment advisors helps pre-retirees and retirees manage risks in the new normal economy as a fiduciary. Foundations does not charge commissions and works with independent advisors nationwide. To request your complimentary customized financial plan, go to American hero show.com

Voice over (male) (22:12):
And now the conversation continues with Travis and Tim

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (22:17):
With championship teams or even units in the Army for me, they all get together. Do you still get together with your players? And on top of that, have you ever gotten together with the other players like the Soviets or anything like that? Just rubbed it in their face a little bit?

Mike Eruzione (22:30):
Yeah, no, we’ve gotten together, we’ve done a couple of, we do a fantasy camp in Lake Placid, although the last two years because of Covid, we haven’t been able to. But the plan is to do one again. I think it’s in May. So we’ll get together for that. Some of us will, unfortunately, two of my teammates have passed since the Olympic games, and then we’ve done some memorabilia like signing. So you go to a show and the team gets together and we’ll sign some memorabilia. We had a golf tournament last year in Minnesota. They’re trying to raise money to put a statue in front of the rink in Lake Placid of our team. Cool. And also of one of Eric Hein who got lost in the shuffle in 1980, he only won five gold medals, right? So I think we get together for things like that. It’s hard to get 18 guys together, but when we get together, it’s kind of fun. We’re like the most immature 60-year-old people you would ever want to meet in your life. If you saw some of the emails and texts that go back and forth between us, my wife will just look at ’em and go, how old are you guys? So we just have fun. You never

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (23:35):
Really leave the locker room.

Mike Eruzione (23:36):
No, you never do. You never do. And it’s just a bond and a friendship that we’ve had. And we’ll always have. I mean, we were part of an incredible moment, and it wasn’t one guy or two guys. It was 20 guys and coaches and trainers that lived a dream opportunity. And we cherish that. And when we get together, it’s funny, when we get together, we do not talk about the Olympic games. We don’t talk about hockey. Who’s fat, who’s ball, who’s divorced, who’s not divorced? It’s great conversation.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (24:06):
Yeah. Well, I mean because you guys were all there. You lived through it. So I guess you guys get asked by everybody else. So I lived through something pretty tragic with norms, no legs, and watching my kids grow. My daughter’s 10 now when she was asking, why don’t you have arms and legs? Or my son, now he’s four. He was like, I want you to have arms and legs. Dad, can you go get ’em back? They don’t understand it. But then watching my daughter go from four, not understanding, to understanding what happened, the actual impact of getting blown up and having to actually explain that was kind of rough for me. But at the same time, it was like eyeopening for my daughter. So now she sees the world differently than most kids. So I guess my roundabout way of asking you is when did your kids start realizing the impact and the importance of what you actually did, what you guys accomplished?

Mike Eruzione (24:50):
I don’t know if they totally understood it, partly because kind of kept it away from them. I’ve always told my kid, I have three kids, a daughter and two boys, and I’ve always told my kids what I did is what I did. What you do is what you do. And I don’t expect them to hit home runs and score winning goals and get touchdowns. I expect them to be good kids, good brother, good sister, good neighbor, good friend, good person. Those are the values that I kind of talked to my kids about. And what dad did, he did. It was a great moment. And I think the older they got, the more they realized it. My grandkids have no idea who I am. And it’s funny, they skate. They skate at the Mike Eruzione Center. The rink in my hometown is named after me, and they don’t know who Mike Eruzione is. I’m Papa. Yeah, that’s right. But the 9-year-old, the 9-year-old I get, I think starts to get it. And then the 8-year-old said to me just the other day, it’s funny. He says, Papa, if you didn’t score that goal, the game would’ve ended up in the tie.

(25:44):
I looked at him, I said, Leo, you’re right. It would’ve ended up as a tie, but they’re going to figure it out sooner or later. And I’m just going to tell ’em how proud I was to be part of a moment that captured the spirit of a country we didn’t know. We were just playing a game, had no idea. The world was watching, no idea the country was watching. And Travis, the letters I’ve gotten from soldiers over the years who talked about what that moment meant to them, guys that were in Vietnam, that came back and wondered what the hell was going on in their lives. And then they saw what we did and took some pride in that. Realizing how special it is. I’ve always said, to represent your country in the Olympic Games is the greatest honor. You can have to play for the Chicago Bowls or the Red Sox.

(26:27):
That’s great. There’s a lot of professional teams, but they played for Chicago or LA or Detroit. When you put a USA jersey on, it’s a whole different mindset. You represent your country. You represent so many people that sit there and watch you. Whether you win or lose, they still feel a part of you and what you’re going through. They relate to that because it says USA on the front. And I grew up in an old fashioned family. My dad was a Marine. My nephew just retired as a full bird colonel in the Marine Corps. My son’s a fireman, my son-in-Law’s a police officer. So those people and people like yourself were people that when I was a kid, you admired, you respected. So what I did, it was a sporting event. What we’re realizing now and what’s going on in the world, there are far more important people out there than captain of a hockey team.

(27:16):
So I think we as a team take great pride in knowing that we touched the lives for so many people. And so many people come up to me, and it’s kind of funny, they’ll say, I remember where I was when we won, and they go, we, I’ll go. I didn’t know you were on the team, but it was a moment that people wanted to be a part of. And I think that’s what separated up our moment. It was named the greatest sports moment of the 20th century. Not because I think of the athletic event of it, but what it meant to a nation, what it meant to a country at a time like we’re dealing with now, we need a 1980 again. We need something to feel good about. And we didn’t know it. That wasn’t our intention. Our intention was to go to Lake Placid and win a medal. And it turned out that we did. And then found out that it resonated way beyond the sporting world. And that’s a proud and special feeling that I think my teammates and I can look back on and realize that we brought joy to so many people for whatever different reason.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (28:16):
Well, it was unifying. I mean, that’s the thing. We could probably use some unifying in today’s modern society because everybody’s so far apart, but everybody, whether you were, it didn’t matter your thoughts or stuff like that. It was more about this is a USA team this year, the Olympics. I think the numbers were atrocious for viewership, but I felt it when Sean White fell in his last run, I felt that I felt terrible for him. I wanted him to win so bad or to do really well. He got fourth. But that was the only moment at the Olympics that I really, I mean, I watched both, all of them, but that was the only moment I really, I’m not sure we’ll ever have another moment like that. Another moment like that 1980, that 80 moment. I’m not sure that we’ll ever be in a position. Maybe we will we’ll ever be in a position where we need that again.

Mike Eruzione (29:05):
Yeah. I don’t know if you’ll have it. And I don’t mean about patting ourselves on the back and saying nobody will do what we did. I think the politics at the time, the political climate, the Soviet Union and the threat, cold War, the hostage, it had been taken inflation, gas prices, unemployment as a country. We were looking for something, like I said earlier, kind of what we’re dealing with now. We need one of those unifying moments. And Travis, you said the same thing, to bring people together and make ’em realize how great this country is that we live in, and the opportunities that we have in this country, the things that you can do and go live somewhere else if you don’t like it and see what it’s like overseas. Try a different neighborhood and see what you think. Not in this country. So again, like I said, I’m kind of an old school guy. My family grew up with the flag and the anthem and loving this country. And it is frustrating sometimes to see things happening here that we don’t want to have happen. But that’s, I guess, part of life as well.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (30:05):
It’s almost like we need a miracle. Anybody? No,

Tim Eisenhart (30:10):
No. That was such a dad joke. That was so good. You got three dads here. You’re good. That’s

Mike Eruzione (30:16):
A good Travis. That’s a good line. But Al Michael’s already used it. Yeah,

Tim Eisenhart (30:19):
That’s right.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (30:20):
Here we go. I know. I saw it somewhere. Well, I’ll tell you what, sir. I really appreciate you taking time and talk with us. Common folk, right?

Tim Eisenhart (30:27):
Truly Tim.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (30:28):
But we really have appreciated. I like

Mike Eruzione (30:31):
Maniacs. You guys are good people.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (30:33):
Well, absolutely. Will you ever want come up? We can check out one something we got going on. I have a restaurant I just opened. Come up to the white duck and have a meal with me. If you

Tim Eisenhart (30:41):
Want to come shoot some pucks with my boys. Just started playing hockey this year. So anytime you want to come to Portland and shoot some pucks. Oh good.

Mike Eruzione (30:48):
Awesome. Yeah, don’t be a hockey dad. Just let ’em have fun and let ’em play.

Tim Eisenhart (30:52):
That’s my goal in life is just to, when they get in the car, did you have fun? What did you learn? And that’s it. And I’m the type of dad, I’m kind of old school. That way. You thank your coaches because they’re not getting paid enough and they’re volunteering their time and they’re,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (31:07):
That’s not true. The first thing he taught ’em was stick

Tim Eisenhart (31:10):
Gloves start. That was what Uncle Travis told him. That’s right. The more penalty minutes you get, the better.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (31:16):
That’s right. That’s right. Skate hard. So you can sit for two minutes,

Mike Eruzione (31:19):
Solve it like I did. Just tell you kids, you’re never going to be good. As I told my sons, you’re never going to be as good as me. So just have some fun

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (31:24):
Playing. That’s good. That’s great advice. That’s good. Well, hey, I appreciate it, sir. Thanks so much for your time and truly an honor.

Mike Eruzione (31:32):
Hey, Travis. Tim, thank you. Thanks for having me. And stay safe up there.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (31:37):
Well, I’ll tell you what, to all the peoples of listening out there, the wonderful listeners of this amazing show, I hope you were not only inspired, but you learn something. You learn something that when you get older and you treat your grandkids better than your kids, the kid that now is the dad of the kid is upset about it. Does that make sense, Tim?

Tim Eisenhart (31:57):
I just fell on the floor. That was so amazingly astute.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (32:00):
Thank you. You’re

Tim Eisenhart (32:01):
Welcome. I thought that was amazing. That was nothing short of amazing.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (32:06):
Yeah, I mean, he sent me that. Me and Chloe just watched that movie,

Tim Eisenhart (32:11):
Miracle on Ice. Yeah, just

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (32:12):
Watched it a few months ago actually. And it was a huge thing then. It’s still a huge thing now, still talking about and uniting the country, right? Bringing the country. Like he said, people say when we won,

Tim Eisenhart (32:23):
They all own it. The whole country owned that win. It was such a, I always say it marked a period of time for the US history, the game was representative of what was happening on a global level for us to, as an underdog, to beat up on what was known as the bear back then, Russia. It was so symbolic, and it was the last. The other part of it that a lot of people don’t realize is that that big game was not the gold medal game. That was just what they were aspiring to. They knew that the Russians were the biggest force in hockey, and to beat him in the US was huge. What’s the matter?

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (33:04):
I didn’t know. It wasn’t the gold medal game.

Tim Eisenhart (33:06):
You didn’t? No. Are you serious? No,

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (33:10):
I had no idea.

Tim Eisenhart (33:12):
They beat Finland for the, oh my God, this

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (33:14):
Is embarrassing. But then again, it was 1980, so I was negative seven. You know what I mean?

Tim Eisenhart (33:19):
A lot of people think it was the gold medal game. It was not the gold medal game. It was to get them into the gold medal. And I think technically would’ve, if they would’ve lost the gold medal game against Finland, there was a chance that they wouldn’t get a medal at all based on the pool play. So they would’ve had to play for a bronze. And if they had lost a bronze, then it would’ve been over.

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (33:38):
Alright, everybody, get your pens out so you can connect all these dots, because I didn’t connect them and I still haven’t really. But again, we’re going to keep bringing you amazing guests that are part of the American Hero Show, and we just want you guys to know how grateful that you’re listening to us and letting us into your world. Because Tim and I cannot wait to talk at you later. And then maybe one day you’ll even see us, or we’ll see you or something.

Tim Eisenhart (34:04):
Somehow

Travis Mills and Tim Eisenhart (34:05):
Some way. Have a great day, my peoples of listening. And remember, if you see Tim, his epidermis is showing. Take care.

Voice over (male) (34:14):
Four more on how you can help our country’s heroes. Go to American Hero show.com.