On this day in history, Feb. 22, 1980, US Olympic men's hockey team shocks Soviets in 'Miracle on Ice'

Mike Eruzione, captain of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, said he 'couldn't believe' the statement by American athlete Chelsea Wolfe.

The United States men's hockey team, mostly amateur college stars, shocked the fearsomely talented Soviet Union 4-3 in the Winter Olympics on this day in history, Feb. 22, 1980. 

It's gone down in sports lore — and entered wider American culture — as "the Miracle on Ice." 

The victory by American boys in Lake Placid, New York, over the invincible Soviets, winners of four straight Olympic gold medals, proved much more than a hockey game. 

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It shook the nation out of what President Jimmy Carter depressingly called America's "crisis of confidence" only seven months earlier in his infamous "malaise" speech. 

"We could use another 1980 right now," Mike Eruzione, a Winthrop, Massachusetts, native and captain of the 1980 U.S. men's hockey team, told Fox News Digital this week. 

Lake Placid, New York, 1980: United States team vs. Russian team, competing in the Men's ice hockey tournament, the "Miracle on Ice," at the 1980 Winter Olympics / XIII Olympic Winter Games, Olympic Fieldhouse. (Steve Fenn /Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

"The country was in great turmoil at the time and along we came. The work ethic, the values we had — it proved the values that make this country so great. The nation saw what we did and took great pride in it."

The stunning victory by Eruzione and his teammates inspired a spontaneous, even delirious, wave of unbridled patriotism from coast to coast.

"We could use another 1980 right now." — U.S. Olympic hockey legend Mike Eruzione

The victory