I mean, that’s just perfect. And harder to do than it looks.
Great coaches play mind games. Remember: the USSR crushed the US 13 days before #MiracleOnIce http://t.co/VjUqOLp8Ec pic.twitter.com/2daRFoE2ts
— Brian Faughnan (@BrianFaughnan) February 22, 2015
Herb was brilliant in a lot of ways. He took as much from the European game as he could without losing the aggressiveness of the North American style that they would need. He molded every single player on that team psychologically and physically to play the exact role he wanted of them. It may have been a miracle, but it was built on nine months of grueling work.
And it’s telling that for many of those players, no one in the NHL could get them to play as well as they did at Lake Placid.