The United States pulled off a historic double during the Winter Olympics, winning both the women’s and men’s hockey gold medals.

The women delivered a comeback for the ages by beating Canada 2-1 in overtime on Feb. 19. Three days later, the U.S. men also beat Canada 2-1 in overtime. It was the first gold medal for the U.S. men since the “Miracle on Ice” team of 1980.

It’s a momentous accomplishment for the USA. Acknowledging that, the 1980 win will always rank as the the greatest David and Goliath sports upset ever.

At that time, the Olympics were reserved for amateur athletes. As a result, Team USA was a college all-star team. They were talented and several went on the good careers in the NHL.

But the Soviet team was the best in the world and whoever was in second place wasn’t even close. The communist regime didn’t recognize professional sports, so the USSR was able to send their best athletes to the Olympics. They were professionals in every way but name.

The Soviets had defeated the NHL all-stars in the Challenge Cup one year prior to the Olympics. The NHL team won the first game 4-2. The USSR rallied to win the second game 5-4 before dominating the deciding game 6-0.

Just two weeks before their Olympic matchup, the Soviet team defeated Team USA 10-3 in an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden in New York.

I was in Air Force Tech School at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Much of our training was about how to combat the threat posed by the Soviet Union. That threat was very real. During an exercise some months later, I was assigned security duty in the McChord Air Force Base Command Post. There was a map of the United States in that room that showed all of the expected targets of Soviet nuclear missiles. At each spot were three concentric circles. The first showed the area turned to bubbling goo. The second was total devastation. The third was still a 90% fatality rate.

When you factored in fallout, nowhere was safe. Nowhere.

So there I was, sitting in the day room after training, watching our boys take on our mortal enemy with no realistic chance of victory. I was watching the game on tape-delay but I didn’t know it at that time. I thought I was watching it in real time. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t know.

Down 2-1 in the final second of the first period, Mark Johnson scored to tie the game. I remember trying to tell other airmen passing through that this was a big deal. A really big deal.

The USSR scored in the second period. Those of us watching felt the USA was giving it a tremendous effort, but we also fully expected the USSR to pull away to a 5-2 or 6-2 win in the third period.

That’s not what happened. Although the Soviets were dominating possession of the puck, Team USA goaltender Jim Craig was performing at a superhuman level. Johnson scored on a power play to tie the game. Mike Eruzione followed with another goal less than two minutes later and the USA led 4-3.

That was followed by the longest 10 minutes of hockey I have ever witnessed. The Soviets applied immense pressure but Craig and his teammates held on. When Al Michaels asked “do you believe in miracles,” we did.

I have carried that feeling ever since.

So the USA double gold at the 2026 Olympics was amazing, but not miraculous. There was only one miraculous.