My American friends and colleagues often ask me how the 1980 Miracle on Ice was covered in the USSR. It's a good question. I was 5, and it was likely the first game I saw on TV, but all I remember is the ending. So, I have decided to do a little research. It was... interesting...

Probably, the best, writing-wise, sports publication in the country was Football-Hockey, the Sunday special edition of the Soviet Sports Daily. It was politicized, as required, but it employed by far the best writers we had.
Here is a sample front page:

HAPPY MAYDAY, it declares in the 1982 edition, celebrating CCCP's routinely planned and delivered World Championship. It continues: "Physical Culture Practitioners and Sportsmen! Raise Participation Levels of Physical Culture Movement Higher! Multiply the Glory of Soviet Sport!"

Here's another one from the same year. Even Brezhnev's official death portrait couldn't make his eyebrows look any less fascinating.
So, yes, certain things were mandatory. Also, Russian sports writing never was in any way neutral. Homerism is rampant and expected. Today, too.

2/10/80. Soviet team's sending away ceremony in front of Lenin's tomb. Captain Boris Mikhailov received the official (!) battle (!!) flag (!!!) of the CCCP hockey team from the Supreme Council of Ministers, while wearing the remains of a formerly happy family of Siberian minks.

The picture above contains about 700% of the daily recommended dosage of the Soviet Union in it. Probably should have warned you in advance.

2/17/80. The 1st Olympic edition. Hockey is leading off. The story is... Team USA. The author, Dmitry Ryzhkov, is impressed with their technical innovation: coach Patrick talks on the radio with coach Vairo up in the box during the Sweden game.
"ARENA WHERE DREAMS ARE TESTED"

CCCP meanwhile gorged on Japan and Holland, so its games weren't a subject of much scrutiny. The report is two pages later, written drily and matter-of-factly. USA's blowout of Czechoslovakia is called surprising, and it's predicted the hosts will easily win the Blue Group.

2/24/80. This came out two days after the Miracle. But, due to the time difference and the technological limitations, the Sunday supplement was sent to the printers before the result was known. So, it contains nothing of the game!
The front page celebrates the win over Finland.

Everything inside was written before the Miracle. But the readers got the paper after the game was seen by the whole country.
"When you get this edition, one more match will be played. But we can tell already there has never been a tournament as rich in news!", ends the report.

"What else awaits us?", asks the reporter, Yuri Tsybanyov. He is rather critical of the Soviet team and praises the tournament format as very interesting, but is a bit miffed that CCCP, after crushing minnows early on, had to play three very difficult games in a row.

3/2/80/. The next edition after the Miracle. This is the front page.
Yup...

They are leading off with Soviet Cup soccer. Round of 32. Meaningless matches in the slush and muck of the Russian winter. Time to move on, comrades.
But, hey, if you want hockey analysis, sure, why not. proceed to pages 10 and 11.
"REVELATIONS OF A UNIQUE TOURNAMENT"

I wonder how many people actually read this piece by Tsybanyov. I am afraid that not too many. Shame. It's good. Legitimately good. Much better than most modern writers can manage. It's deep, perceptive, insightful, wastes no space on cliche quotes and takes the Soviets to task..

Tsybanyov doesn't reach for the low-hanging fruit, either. Tikhonov's decision to pull Tretiak isn't criticized or indeed even mentioned. The writer rejects any notions that the loss was a fluke, a piece of unique misfortune, explainable by a singular mistake...

In his opinion, the loss was long in the making, its genesis visible in the previous games by CCCP. He readily admits that Team USA is inferior in skill and talent but says their main advantage was resiliency and determination. He says Johnson's last-second goal was emblematic...

He says that, overall, the Soviets played the Miracle game better, with fewer errors, than the game against Canada, which they won. But they were grievously unprepared for the fact that USA would be both disciplined and extremely assertive.

"We could have avoided defeat", he writes. "But this approach to the team that finished seventh in the Worlds is not serious."
He also heaps praise on Brooks, especially his team's conditioning. Soviets were stumped by the Americans' getting stronger as the game went on.

The article contains no quotes. Tsybanyov has no time for canned sportspeak. He has his opinions and lays them out systematically, not sparing the readers' raw feelings. There is no undue emotion and no excuses. He wishes the American heart could be put into more talented bodies.

This is it. This is how the loss was taken. With dignity and cold, self-critical analysis. The opponent was praised (in 1980! With the looming Carter boycott of the Moscow Games!), scapegoating avoided. Well done, Yuri Tsybanyov, who is still active as a soccer expert.

The excuses and the ugliness happened later. The Soviets could afford one loss, even to America. It got shuffled in the stack of wins, after all. But in the post-Soviet days, as frustrations mounted and self-esteem plunged, resentment at the Miracle grew...

Nowadays, the game is remembered as an outrage, a lucky break for undeserving, probably doped-up nobodies who benefited from the Soviet team's having to live in an actual prison (technically true, though the building wasn't converted until later) and Tikhonov's error.

"Eruzione wasn't even an amateur! He had played in the pros!", you will hear some Russian revisionist yell, adorably, in defense of his team composed entirely of top-notch pros.
But hey, that's now. That was then. And Brezhnev's eyebrows were a thing to behold.
Good night.