What was the Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games?

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The Miracle on Ice refers to the U.S. ice hockey team’s victory over the Soviet Union, the dominant team in international hockey, during the 1980 Winter Olympics. Going into the Games, the United States hockey team had won just one gold medal, in 1960, along with four silver medals, and was coming off a fourth-place finish at the Innsbruck 1976 Olympic Winter Games in Austria. In a dozen games between the 1960 and 1980 Olympics, the Soviets had gone 12–0 against the United States. Two days after its victory against the Soviets, the U.S. team beat Finland, securing the gold medal.