The essay addresses three critically important items related to a soccer and hockey game. To be honest, neither of these sports is my favorite. I never played either of them and know almost nothing about the position of the players or any rules. I understand that a goal is worth a point and the team with the most points wins.

The only time I became quasi-interested in either sport was when an American team participated in a big international sporting event, the 1980 Winter Olympics. That hockey game is called the Miracle on Ice.

The Miracle on Ice

Back in the 1980 Winter Olympics, America faced the Soviet Union. The Soviet team was better than the American team. The Soviets had won four gold medals in the previous four Olympics. In the 1980 Olympics, the team was better than any of their previous teams since 1968. The Soviets were professional hockey players, while the American team was college students and was the youngest American team to play in the Olympics and the youngest team from any country in the 1980 Olympics.

America fielded young college kids, and they beat the Soviets. Being the underdogs worked to their benefit. The 1980 Olympics occurred during the Cold War, and the American hockey team used their abilities to stand up to the Russians. They demonstrated their patriotism and their guts, and they won.

And then there was the World Cup game between Iran and the US several days ago. However, before that game, the Iranian soccer team refused to sing their national anthem when they played England.

No singing

The Iranian team wanted to show solidarity with the Iranian women refusing to wear a hijab three months ago. The protest over women’s rights has resulted in over four hundred deaths. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, killed by the police while in custody, has become the symbol of their protest movement.

Mahsa Amini

The Iranian police talked to the team after not singing their national anthem at the game with England. They made it clear to them that they and their families would face retribution if they continued their support of Iranian women.

Therefore, they sang their national anthem before the game with the US. Interestingly, the American team paralleled the hockey team in the 1980 Olympics. They were young and inexperienced compared to the Iranians. Additionally, political issues between Iran and America, including the West, over the Iranian development of nuclear weapons and the treatment of women caused the American team to demonstrate their protest of the Iranian rulers. And as the underdogs, they took that opportunity to carpe diem.

A miracle on the pitch

This photo is the only score of the game made by Christian Pulistic. Pulistic’s score resulted in an injury that took him out of the game. Regardless, the US beat the Iranians. Interestingly, Pulistic’s first seemed a strange happenstance for the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi and the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The parallels between the hockey and soccer games were obvious to me. The young underdog teams took on superior teams for patriotic reasons, which included human rights, and won. I wonder whether any Soviet hockey team wanted to protest their government’s human rights issues like the Iranian team.

This video is the complete hockey game between the US and USSR.

This video is the complete soccer game between US and Iran.