There'll never be another Miracle on Ice

I'm dating myself but I clearly remember the thrill of the Miracle on Ice in 1980 in which the US hockey team (amateurs all) defeated the mean old Soviet Union team of grown, professional men, for the right to play and beat Finland in the gold-medal round. There's some sad news associated with that story....

From FoxSports -- A 1980 ''Miracle on Ice'' Olympic gold medal has been sold at public auction for nearly $311,000.

The medal belonged to Mark Wells, then a 21-year-old center for the U.S. hockey team. He sold the medal this year to a private collector, who consigned it to Heritage Auctions of Dallas.

The sad part is that Mark Wells needed money to pay for medical bills from spinal issues that have kept him mostly bedridden. He sold it to a collector who then put it up for auction and it fetched nearly three times what anybody had predicted.

The other sad but tangential part about this story is that shortly after that unbelievable underdog win, the US started allowing professional sports stars to participate in the Olympics rather than limiting it to amateurs. That gave rise to the absurdly boring Dream Team, and now Olympic sports are mostly no different than watching professional sports, which we can do anytime. There will never be another Miracle on Ice. I'd rather the US remain amateur and lose regularly, but have a chance of greatness like the '80 hockey team, than feign even mild interest in watching our professionals hammer the poor saps from the Ukraine or wherever. That's why I usually tune out the Olympics unless there are true amateurs competing in an obscure discipline like the luge or skeleton. I love those events because they are not professionals and you can die doing them.