The Miracle On Ice apparently…

…wasn’t:

For the twentieth straight year the Roman Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II have rejected the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Teams Gold Medal Victory as a bona fide miracle.

“Of course, it’s disappointing,” said teams captain Mike Eruzione. “At some point you begin to doubt yourself whether or not in fact there was divine intervention in that victory over the Soviets.”

The Miracle on Ice has been controversial since TV Evangelist Al Michaels asked his viewers, “Do you believe in miracles?” when referencing the U.S. victory over the powerhouse U.S.S.R Red Army team in a medal round hockey game in 1980. His enthusiastic answer to his own question, “Yes!” converted millions to the hockey team’s cause, testifying that their highly unlikely victory was indeed the result of divine intervention.

Anticipating papal validation of the event, the media quickly dubbed the event as the “Miracle on Ice”. However, Michael’s proclamation that a miracle had just occurred, as well as the media backing, had no authority with the Catholic Church whom must investigate all claims of miracles independently.

I didn’t know the Pope even played hockey.

(Via Red)

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 3:29 am and is filed under The Rare Sports Post. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.