Thirty years ago today, on February 22, 1980, that famous game took place, which captured America's heart and made Olympic history.  It would come to be known as the "Miracle on Ice." But as Jim Craig, goalie for the team, will tell you, "What we did wasn't a miracle.  It was the result of hard work."

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Craig about his experience with the 1980 team for a new book we are working on together The insight he offered gave me a whole new perspective on that famous game, and on what US Olympic Coach Herb Brooks did to get his team ready.

"Brooks ran every practice preparing us to beat the Soviets, the best team in the world," Craig told me.  But even before Brooks began preparing his team, he prepared himself.

For more than a year before the team roster was set -- even before he was named to the position of Head Coach -- Brooks analyzed the Soviet team, studying their style and figuring out what had made them so dominant.  He watched game reels and even traveled to watch them play in Moscow and on the road.  As the gold medal winners in five of the last six Olympic Games, the team from the USSR was unquestionably the best team in the world. 

Before long, however, Brooks discovered that the Soviets' dominance wasn't due to a secret technique.  Instead, he realized that their success was owed to the fact that they could out-skate their competition at the end of the game, when the stakes were the highest.

From that moment on, his coaching philosophy shifted as he focused most intensely not on hockey skills, but on conditioning for his team.

"Coach pushed us harder than any of us had ever been pushed," Craig explained.  "But he did it because he knew that the great strength of that Russian team was that its players were in incredible shape at the end of the game.  They blew people away in the third period. We took that away from them by being in better shape.  We worked every day in practice to be ready for that third period of that one game."

Brooks' non-traditional approach to preparation was intense:  The US team worked out before games, when other coaches insisted their players should rest; they worked out after games, when other teams were celebrating a win or consoling each other over a loss.  When the moment finally arrived all that practice made sense.  As the Americans came out of the locker room, trailing just 2-1 to start the third period of that game 30 years ago today, the Soviets looked into their opponents' eyes and they saw no fear.