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Message: [QUOTE="jncuse, post: 4220720, member: 1969"] I'll take away all the Geo-Politics, the Geo Politics which rightly made the game the most historical major upset of all time (or one of them). But purely on paper I think the likelihood of that 1 game result was higher than some other big events. Yes the Russians were dominant and had much. much better talent. But the US still had a fair amount of talent on their team, albeit early 20's talent. Morrow, Ramsey, Christian, Broten, Pavelich, Johnson, Christoff. In the game of hockey that is low scoring, strange things do happen in 1 game settings. Just related to things I know and follow, the 1998 Switzerland team winning the bronze medal at the World Junior Championships would be much more unlikely on paper than the US winning that single 1980 game against Russia. Now no one cares about that event - nor should anyone care. I am just bringing it up as what can happen over a few games. The Russians Red Army team would also be challenged when they faced the Montreal Canadiens for example including the classic game in 1975. I believe the Red Army team was not the same as the National Team, but most of them played on Red Army. I just randomly went and checked the 1977 Canadiens Schedule to see who they lost to. The 1977 Montreal Canadiens had 9 Hall of Famers, 4 Other Players who were all stars within a few years or in 1977, and 1 player who became a Selke winner. They were 60-8-12 and considered by some as the Greatest Team Ever. One of their losses was to the Kansas City Scouts. The Kansas City Scouts won 12 games that year and were one of the worst teams of all time. Looking at the names on that team they had no more talent than the US team, but of course they were better because of experience. (As an aside that was a crazy era in the NHL where expansion teams were slaughtered) This is just an example of what can happen in one game. Now to be fair its quite possible most of the Canadiens team were hungover and were not up for the match at all. [/QUOTE]

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