Hockey player who was on Olympic 'miracle' team recalls excitement

Published: 2004-02-09

GALLUP, N.M. (CNS) -- When Steve Janaszak returned to the empty ice arena in Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1990, he closed his eyes and remembered the chilling excitement of the crowd's repeated chant of "USA! USA!" and how their shouts shook the rafters. Ten years earlier, in a moment now frozen in time, Janaszak and the other players on the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team were dubbed the "miracle" team for their victory over the top-ranked Soviet team at the XIII Winter Games. The U.S. squad went on to win the gold medal in a final match with Finland. Janaszak is now 47 and an investment banker living in Babylon, N.Y., with his wife of 23 years, Jaclyn, and their 19- and 13-year-old daughters. In an interview with the Voice of the Southwest, Gallup diocesan newspaper, he said the impact on America of how the players became a winning team has yet to fade. "We were 20 guys who became one," said Janaszak, a parishioner at St. Joseph's Church in Babylon, in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The story of the team's Olympic victory has been described by Sports Illustrated magazine as the greatest athletic event of the 20th century.

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