This strategy, along with an "old-fashioned slap shot" - which was "drilled home...by Bill Baker of the University of Minnesota, in front of a crowd of 4,000 that half-filled the new field house" in Lake Placid. Only half full meant that perhaps most American Winter Olympics' fans didn't think the U.S. had a chance, and didn't buy the tickets because of that.

Eskenazi went on to explain that on the same night, the Soviet team beat Japan, 16-0, and Czechoslovakia routed Norway, 11-0. It was a sweet "victory" for the Americans to tie the Swedes, because the Swedes had joked that they had sent their "B" team out against Team USA; their "A" team, Eskenazi went on, was playing in the NHL.

Team USA then defeated Czechoslovakia 7-3, and West Germany, 4-2, and won two more to make the "medal round" - in which they really began to be taken...
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