Twenty-six years ago, Mark Johnson was finishing up what would be his final season with the Wisconsin men’s hockey team, an unknown outside of college hockey circles. A year later, Johnson would be one of the most famous athletes in all of the United States with one of the most amazing stories to tell. All it took was a year of hard work and a couple of goals against the Russians in perhaps the most famous hockey game ever.

After surviving an 80-man tryout in front of Team USA’s coaching staff, Johnson and his new teammates went to work becoming a team by playing an intense 60-game schedule in the months leading up to the Olympics. While the group hadn’t established its full identity yet, it did well against Central Hockey League (top NHL minor league at that time) opponents and international B-teams.

“I don’t know what our exact record was, but we certainly had more wins than losses,” Johnson said. “We did really well.”

Feeling pretty good about themselves, Johnson and Team USA got their first taste of what Olympic competition would be like when they faced off with the Soviet Union in a pre-Olympic warm-up. The gold medal favorites beat the United States 10-3 in a game that might not have been as close as the score indicated.

“We didn’t lose to [the Soviets], we got waxed,” Johnson said. “Probably for half our team that was the first time they’d seen [the Soviets’] actual Olympic team so our players were just in awe, and any time you stand around and just watch players of that caliber, good things aren’t going to happen.”

The humbling defeat shook Team USA out of its comfort zone and, as Johnson pointed out, probably went a long way towards helping the young players prepare for the road ahead.

“Looking back at the whole scenario, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to us,” Johnson said. “It was twofold — one, it opened our eyes to the level of play we needed to get to in a real short time. Secondly, it gave a little too much confidence to the Russians.”

As the tournament opened up, Team USA showed that it had at least taken the lesson to heart, working hard to tie a talented Sweden team. It was the second game of the tournament that proved Team USA truly understood what it took to compete at the level needed to make a run at an Olympic medal, as the United States beat Czechoslovakia 7-3.

“Probably the best game we played start to finish was the game against the Czechs, our second game,” Johnson said. “From a confidence standpoint, it really elevated our team’s confidence of what we were capable of doing.”

Team USA turned that confidence into three more wins against Norway, Romania and West Germany, to earn a spot in the medal round. The only problem — they earned a second meeting with the Soviet juggernaut.

The United States certainly wasn’t a rag-tag group of hockey players that defied all odds in beating the Russians as the myth of the “Miracle on Ice” seems to indicate 25 years later, but there was no doubt an experience gap that left Team USA facing an uphill battle against the Soviet Union.

“When you look back on the group of players and what they did after they left Lake Placid you realize we had a pretty good team,” Johnson said. “But we were so young, we were up against astronomical odds because the teams that were going after the gold medal were professional players. They were men and we were just young kids — some of us didn’t even shave yet.”

Going into the game, the young Americans just wanted to keep the game close so that they had a chance at the end. Having seen just what the Russians could do during the exhibition game, that was easier said than done.

“We wanted to stay close because they could strike so quickly that the game could be over in the first period,” Johnson said. “As every five minutes went by in that game, the mindset for us was ‘yeah, this is good.'”

Johnson collected the first of his two goals right as the buzzer sounded to end the first period. The goal pulled the United States level with the Soviets 2-2 after 20 minutes of play. While the Americans were more aggressive than in their first encounter, goaltender Jim Craig certainly deserved much of the credit for keeping Team USA in the game.

“It started with Jimmy [Craig] playing in the net, playing some of the best hockey he ever played,” Johnson said.

Again, the young Americans simply survived as they managed only two shots in the second period while Craig faced wave after wave of Russian attackers. When the second 20 minutes came to an end, the Soviet Union had only managed one break-away goal to move into the lead 3-2.

“We went into the third period 3-2, and all of the sudden I score to tie it 3-3, and shortly after that Mike [Eruzione] scores to make it 4-3 and all of the sudden you look up at the clock and there are 10 minutes to go and you’re ahead of the game, you’re up a goal,” Johnson said of the turning point in the game. “We were all in a position we never thought we’d be in.”

Even with the lead, there was no comfort for Team USA as the Russians mounted a furious comeback. Considering the talent on the Soviet team, the upset wasn’t a sure deal until the clock struck zero.

“You maybe started to sense [the upset] with a minute to go, maybe 20 seconds, but before that no,” Johnson said. “You never got comfortable until that horn went off and it was over.”

With the celebration that ensued, many people thought that was the end of the story for the Americans. However, they still had to beat a talented Finnish team to earn the gold medal. A loss or a tie, depending on the outcome of the Soviet’s second game in the medal round, could have resulted in Team USA leaving Lake Placid without a medal.

“No one anticipated us beating [the Soviets],” Johnson said. “A lot of people didn’t even realize that we still had to play the Fins Sunday morning.”

Trailing 2-1 going into the final period, Team USA came out and played one of its best periods of hockey, scoring three goals en route to a 4-2 victory and the gold medal. By defeating the Fins, the Americans cemented their place in history rather than becoming a footnote.

“If we would have lost to the Fins, [beating the Soviets] would have been a great story for 36 hours and then ‘what could’ve been’, ‘what should’ve been,'” Johnson said. “As (Team USA head coach) Herbie (Brooks) said, ‘If we lost that game, we’d take it to our f–ing graves.'”

Twenty-five years later, Johnson is back in Wisconsin coaching the UW women’s hockey team. However, after all of that time, he and his teammates are still famous and they still have one of the greatest stories in sports history to tell.