The book Boys of Winter is about the 1980 USA Mens Olymipic Hockey team. Its a story of how the hockey team came to win the Gold Medal in the 1980 Olympics while overcoming great obstacles. The team was made up of all college students from most of the highly recognized college hockey programs in the country. The reason it was such a great obstacle for the team to win the Gold was because not only were they under aged college students going up against grown world class hockey athletes, but also because the USA hockey program had not won a Gold in twenty years and was in the bottom of the barre ll when it came to hockey skill.
Coach, Herb Brooks was also underrated. After being cut from the 1960 Gold Medal wining team a day before they left for the games only fueled his passion to win the what he felt was taken from him so many years ago. Brooks coaching style was one that the USA hockey program had never seen before. He took the Soviets style of play, which allowed the Soviets to be the best hockey team for the last decade and a half, and integrated it into the USA's style making a hybrid which was new to the entire hockey world. He believed in not sitting back an waiting, but taking the play to the other team and "shoving it down their throats." The sports world was in for what is arguably the best upset in sport history and little did they know that it would come from kids who had just turned twenty-one.
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