Eruzione’s Magic Touch Lights Up Olympics Again

“Eleven seconds, you got 10 seconds, the countdown going on right now. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

Sports commentator Al Michaels’s words are a tag line that defines the 1980 Winter Olympics men’s hockey semi-final game to this day.

The 1980 games, held in Lake Placid, N.Y., set the stage for one of the most inspiring moments in Olympic history. Amidst Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the U.S. men’s hockey team faced the Soviets team in the semi final game.

With less than 10 minutes left in the game, Boston University alumnus Mike Eruzione’s 20-foot wrist shot zipped past a Soviet defenseman and goaltender Vladimir Myshkin and hit the net, giving the United States a 4-3 lead. Eruzione’s winning goal is still remembered as one of the most spectacular moments in Olympic history.

Though they were the underdogs throughout the first six games of the tournament, the U.S. team proved it was a force to be reckoned with when they defeated the Soviets.

They went on to defeat Finland and win the gold. They were superstars cloaked in media attention, adored by fans and led by Eruzione, their captain and a former BU hockey player.

Surrounded by family portraits, various golfing pictures and assorted Olympic memorabilia, Eruzione, now the director of Development for Athletics at BU, sat in his seventh floor office of the School of Management Building Monday and remembered what was going through his head in the moment before he scored the winning goal.

“Just get it on net,” Eruzione recalled. “It’s a play that I’ve made a lot of times in my life … It was the Olympics, it was bigger and the scope was bigger and it was on television.”

“It’s amazing what can go through your mind in a short period of time. My thought was, there is a defenseman in front of me. If the defenseman stayed, I was going to use him as a screen because I didn’t think the goalie could see him. If the defenseman came at me, I was going to pass it [the puck] by the defenseman to one of my teammates. So he stayed and I shot.”

As chants of “USA!” Rang through the air, the 10 remaining minutes before the buzzer sounded seemed like an eternity, Eruzione said. He and his fellow teammates celebrated after the Soviet game before enduring a difficult Saturday practice in preparation for the gold-medal game against Finland.

“We went six games as a underdog and then the seventh game as the favorite,” said Jack O’Callahan, a teammate with Eruzione on the Olympic team and the Terrier team. “We had to channel our emotion into our effort and keep our minds on the game.”

Emotion is a key component to hockey, said Eruzione. O’Callahan and BU hockey coach Jack Parker both remember Eruzione as a particularly emotional player.

“Hockey is a game of emotion and you have to play with emotion,” Eruzione said. “But you have to play with positive emotion. You have to know what you’re doing and still play with that intensity.”

The emotions of the 1980 games once again consumed Eruzione when he returned to the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games in Salt Lake City last month.

However, Eruzione did not attend the 2002 Winter Olympic games to participate. He was there to light the Olympic torch. After much speculation in the days preceding the event, the Olympic torch lighters were revealed when Eruzione and his 1980 teammates stepped up to the cauldron.

“We sat in the stands and watched the opening ceremonies,” Eruzione said. “Right up until that moment it happened everyone had no idea and probably figured it out once we got up.”

Eruzione was contacted about six months ago and asked to simply be involved with the opening ceremony. At that time neither the Olympic committee nor Eruzione knew what his role was going to be.

A week before they were scheduled to head out to Utah, Eruzione and the team were called and asked to fly out.

“The opening ceremony was Friday,” Eruzione said. “Thursday night we had rehearsal at one in the morning at the stadium. We practiced walking up with a pretend torch. We were just sky high. We couldn’t tell anybody so we just went with the flow.”

Eruzione lit the torch with 17 other team members, including three fellow BU alumni: Dave Silk, CAS ’80, Jack O’Callahan, CAS ’79, and Jim Craig, SED ’79.

Eruzione stepped into the limelight in 1977, when he was named co-captain of the BU hockey team during his senior year.

Eruzione said he was lucky to get an opportunity to play for BU. A native of Winthrop he was planning to attend Merrimack College, a Division II school at the time. One week before he was about to begin his freshman year of college, Parker , then the Terriers’ assistant coach, approached him.

“I was playing in a summer league game and Parker asked me where I was going to school next year,” Eruzione said.

Parker was refereeing in that game and remembers the conversation.

“I’d seen him play in high school,” Parker said. “He said no Division I schools had talked to him.

‘”Well, I’m talking to you right now,’ I said.”

“About a week before school started, Parker offered me the scholarship,” Eruzione said, smiling. “At that time tuition was $3,200 and if I didn’t get a full scholarship my parents couldn’t afford it.”

Eruzione, the second-leading scorer in BU team history and a BU Hall of Fame member, played as a left wing and credits Parker for helping him win the gold.

“A lot of special things have happened in my life and it’s all because of BU,” Eruzione said. “If I hadn’t been playing for Parker, I don’t believe I would have ended up on that [Olympic] team.”

Eruzione received the scholarship and entered BU as a physical education major in the School of Education. On the ice, Parker said Eruzione proved himself a true competitor.

“In his freshman year, about halfway through the season, we were playing a game in which we received one penalty and then one right after that,” said Parker.

The penalties were against the two BU forwards, used to defend against a five-on-three power play. Parker realized he hadn’t practiced anyone else in the forward position.

“Everyone was looking away, but freshman Mike Eruzione was looking straight at me saying ‘I’ll go, I’ll go.’ Then I knew this kid wanted to be a competitor.”

During his years at BU, Eruzione and his teammates went to four straight NCAA final fours and won four consecutive ECAC titles, a Beanpot title and various Christmas and Thanksgiving tournaments.

O’Callahan, who played with Eruzione in 1976 and ’77, remembers Eruzione as a definite leader and hard worker who lead by example.

“Mike always backed up what he said in the locker room,” O’Callahan said.

In 1977, Eruzione, served as co-captain of the team with good friend and roommate Ricky Meaghar.

“Ricky was very quiet and Mike was more boisterous,” O’Callahan said. “Both were tremendous competitors.”

According to O’Callahan, Eruzione’s competitive edge and enthusiasm proved valuable for him during the Olympic tryouts.

“I don’t think there were a lot of people who gave him a shot,” O’Callahan said. “He wasn’t a shoo-in.”

When the Olympic tryouts were taking place in Colorado, Eruzione had been out of college two years, playing in the minor leagues.

“After my senior year I was thinking of playing in the NHL and ended up playing a couple years in the minor leagues, which you can do as an amateur,” Eruzione said. “I didn’t make a lot of money. After two years of playing in the minor leagues, I had the chance to try out for the 1980 team.”

Eruzione bypassed the open trials because he had been a successful college player and went straight to the tryouts in Colorado Springs, where 80 players were brought in. The players were divided up into four teams and competed in a tournament for two weeks. Olympic hockey team coach Herb Brooks evaluated their performances.

“Herb Brooks sat in the stands and watched us and evaluated [us] and from there selected 26 guys to be on the [team],” Eruzione said.

Of the 26 who made the team, four were from BU; Eruzione, O’Callahan, Craig and Silk.

“BU being a perennial power in those years, we had some pretty good players,” Eruzione said.

Eruzione said he feels the tradition of impressive players continues today at BU.

“Not only do we have great players, but most of them all are pretty great kids,” Eruzione said. “It’s fun for me to know that they’re the kind of kids that you wouldn’t mind having in your neighborhood or in your family. They seem very respectful and hardworking.”

In his 10 years at BU, Eruzione has shifted positions several times, formerly working as Director of Special Projects. He is now the director of Development for Athletics.

“I’m involved with fundraising for athletics, meeting with alums,” Eruzione said.

“Basically right now, [I am] meeting with a lot of our NHL players, trying to get them to donate money to the new Village. I go to different events here where some of our higher-end alums might be. I talk about BU and promote BU and hopefully get some money from them.”

In addition to his duties at BU, Eruzione plays on a celebrity golf tour and has his own personal motivational speaking business.

As a hockey player and a contributor to the BU community, it is Eruzione’s character that has allowed him to constantly surpass people’s expectations, said O’Callahan, who remains a good friend of Eruzione’s.

“Mike made that [1980] Olympic team in that 10 day period,” O’Callahan said. “He stood out in his effort and talent. He surprised a lot of people.”