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lilhokie525 OP
Sep 02, 2025 at 07:04 AM ET
today's trivia
Who did the US team beat in the gold medal men's ice hockey game at the 1980 Winter Olympics?

8 Replies

G
Geekull
11mo
Canada
UTPr0sim UTPr0sim
11mo
Soviet Union?
JoesterVT JoesterVT
11mo
That was the semifinal match
santafe santafe
11mo
Finland?
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lilhokie525 OP
11mo
ding, ding, ding, correct!
Sorry about the slow response. Team USA defeated Finland 4-2 in the final. The win over the Soviets was 4-3 in the semifinal.
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Gobbler-100
11mo
This is actually a popular misconception about the 1980 tournament.
The format was bonkers. There was an initial group stage with 2 groups of 6 where everybody played the other 5 teams in their group and the top 2 from each group advanced. Standard stuff so far. And Sweden won the US group while the Soviets won their group, so you'd think it would've been US vs USSR in one semi, Sweden/Finland in the other, and the winners for the gold (which is what people assume was the case). But that wasn't the format for the final round. It was a quasi-round robin with your previous match against the other advancing team from your group carrying over and each team just playing the two teams from the other group. So because the Soviets beat Finland in group play and the US tied Sweden, the standings were USSR 2 pts, US and Sweden 1 pts each, Finland with 0 pts at the start of the final round. After we beat the Soviets and Sweden tied Finland, it was US 3, USSR and Sweden 2 each, and Finland 1. So assuming the Soviets were going to beat Sweden soundly (which they eventually did), we would need to beat Finland outright to win the gold. We did and won the gold...but it wasn't "the final" and Finland actually didn't even medal. The Soviets won the silver and Sweden took the bronze.
santafe santafe
11mo
Yeah, seems weird that a team in the title game doesn't even get a medal.
santafe santafe
11mo
No worries on the response. I was beginning to doubt myself though.... :)