Stick-ing Around Hockey History In Multiple Ways 

Bill Christian remembers Seattle being his immediate hockey reward for having spurred the United States to Winter Olympic gold in the original “Miracle on Ice” nearly 65 years ago.

Christian, now 86, and his brother, Roger, were stars of that Team USA, which pulled off two stunning upsets to win this country’s first ice hockey gold at Squaw Valley, Calif. some 20 years before the more widely celebrated 1980 triumph at Lake Placid, NY. While members of the 1980 squad, including Christian’s son, Dave, went on to NHL careers, endorsement deals and Hollywood lore, his own biggest takeaway from the 1960 Olympic gold was a minor professional tryout with the Seattle Totems.

“I just had a tryout with them after the Olympics for seven games,” said Christian, who plans to attend his first Kraken game at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday, the home side facing his grandson, Brock Nelson, and the visiting New York Islanders. “That was a really good team, too, the Totems. A good bunch of guys as well.”

Christian and his brother both got tryouts that season with a defending WHL champion Totems squad featuring Guyle Fielder, Rudy Filion, Marc Boileau, Gordie Sinclair, Tom McVie and others, coached by future Philadelphia Flyers general manager Keith Allen of “Broad Street Bullies” fame. Though neither brother stuck with the team – Christian played four additional games for them the following season -- their sister moved out to Seattle in following years and settled down here, providing an extended Pacific Northwest family the brothers have often visited.

Christian will be part of 21 local family members attending Saturday’s game.

After they failed to catch on with the Totems, the brothers headed home to tiny Warroad, Minn. where they worked as carpenters, played senior hockey and founded the Christian Bros. stick company – it’s wooden models widely used by NHL players through the 1990s.

An interesting note: After the brothers sold the company in 2002, it went bankrupt just 10 months later under new ownership. But shortly after that, the company was purchased again and revived by Denver-based Harrow Sports, founded by businessman Mark Hayden – none other than the father of current Kraken AHL veteran and occasional NHL forward John Hayden. Hayden’s dad kept the company producing Christian-branded sticks the remainder of that decade.

But had television been more prominent in 1960, there’s a good chance both Christian brothers might have been immortalized beyond hockey sticks the way some members of the future 1980 team eventually were. The similarities between the 1960 and 1980 squads are uncanny, starting with “Miracle” 1980 coach Herb Brooks – played by Kurt Russell in the Hollywood movie – being the last player cut from the original 1960 gold medal team.

Brooks being left off caused controversy, as Harvard University star Bill Clearly had insisted his brother, Bob, be added to the team – removing that available roster spot. Not everyone on Team USA believed Bob Cleary was good enough to play and the players were clearly sympathetic towards a devastated Brooks.

“We knew Herb very well,” Christian said. “We played against him in high school. He was a great guy. He was all business and he liked his hockey and loved his coaching – that was for sure.”

The remaining players initially froze the Clearys out as a group. It would be the Christian brothers helping smooth things over by being among the first to talk to them.

Both the 1960 and 1980 teams were comprised of non-NHL, current and former college players mainly from Minnesota and Massachusetts. Many of the 1960 players on the Jack Riley-coached team had to leave behind full-time jobs to try out and train.

Another similarity: Both teams had to upset the Soviet Union in their next-to-last games, then both needed to rally from behind in the final period of the next contest to win gold.

And in 1960 against the Soviets, Christian’s heroics mirrored – and even exceeded -- what Mike Eruzione more famously pulled off two decades later. Eruzione scored the winning goal with 10 minutes to play in 1980 to put Team USA ahead of the Soviets to stay by a 4-3 count after they’d entered the third period down 3-2.

The 1960 team trailed the Soviets 2-1 after one period. But Christian scored the tying goal against Soviet netminder Nikolai Puchkov midway through the second period and then notched the winner with only 5:01 to go in the final frame.

His brother assisted on both goals.

“On the tying goal, I was coming in on the left side, and the goalie left me quite a bit of room on the left side, so I just put it by his pads,” Christian said. “On the winning goal, I was getting jumped around in front of the net and the rebound came out and I poked it in.”

The standing room only crowd of nearly 10,000 in the 8,500-seat Blyth Arena went wild. From there, the Americans, outshot 13-5 in the final period, fought to hang on behind the stellar netminding of Jack McCartan – his generation’s version of 1980 hero netminder Jim Craig.

CBS televised the game live and commentator Bud Palmer counted down “3…2…1…and the game is over! The United States wins!” as McCartan leaped into his teammates’ arms.

“It felt like a lifetime the last few minutes of that game,” Christian said.

It was the first time Team USA had ever beaten the Soviets. And their second miraculous win in a row, since they’d beaten gold medal favorite Canada, which was considered an even better team than the Soviets, by a 2-1 count the prior contest.

And while Christian said his teammates had confidence in their abilities, it wasn’t really until beating Canada that he, his teammates and plenty of others truly began believing in their chances.

“We never really got much attention until we beat Canada,” he said. “We never saw sportswriters, or whatever, in our locker room. Maybe one. But after we beat Canada, they were all around us. Wow, it was crazy.”

There were no gold medal games in Winter Olympic competition back then. Instead, the final round was a six-team round-robin tournament to determine the winner. The very next morning, after upsetting the Soviets the prior afternoon, Christian and his team faced Czechoslovakia, knowing it still needed to win to avoid being overtaken for gold.

After two periods, Christian and his group trailed 4-3, much the same way Team USA in 1980 trailed Finland 2-1 in a decisive must-win affair.

In the second intermission, the Americans got a surprise dressing room visit from Soviet team captain Nikolai Sologubov – who they’d beaten the day before. Sologubov and the Soviets knew they’d secure a medal and bump the Czechs from the podium if the Americans won.

“He didn’t want the Czechs to finish ahead of his team,” Christian said.

And to help make sure of that, Sologubov had brought an oxygen mask and tank into the dressing room with him and was offering it to the team USA players.

“Not a chance that would ever happen today,” Christian said. “Can you imagine a Russian player coming into a foreign locker room?”

Eight of the American players took him up on the oxygen. The U.S. then scored six goals in the final period to win 9-4 and claim gold with a perfect tournament record.

“My brother, Roger, he didn’t take any oxygen and he scored three of the six goals,” Christian said.

Bill Clearly wound up leading Team USA in total points with 12 for the tournament, while his brother, Bob, whose skills had initially been doubted, was third highest with eight. The Christian brothers each were tied for second-most points with nine apiece.

“They honored us for winning, but not around the country or anything like that,” Christian said. “It was just a different time. We all had to go back home to work. We didn’t get any (NHL) offers, so I went out to Seattle and my wife joined me out there for a while. And then I went back to Warroad and that was it.”

Almost 20 years to the day of his capturing gold, Bill Christian would be in the stands in Lake Placid to see his son, Dave, the Team USA leader in assists, replicate his feat with the 1980 team. They trailed Finland 2-1 after two periods, but, like their 1960 predecessors, scored three in the final frame to win 4-2 and take home the country’s second-ever gold medal.

Christian’s wife, Carol, now deceased, and daughter, Jeri – who will also be attending Saturday’s Kraken game to watch her son, Islanders center Nelson -- would hold up a “U-S-A!” sign and help start the chants that became popularized to this day by that 1980 team. Dave Christian went on to score 340 goals over a 1,009-game career with five NHL teams, one of 13 members of the 1980 team that eventually played in the league.

Meanwhile, only two members of the 1960 squad went on to play in the six-team NHL, that being goalie McCartan and forward Tommy Williams – who’d drawn the assist on Christian’s winner against the Soviets and in 1963 became the first U.S.-born player to score 20 goals in an NHL season.

As for Christian himself, he’s satisfied with being a key part of U.S. hockey history. Even if many of the fans sitting with him at Climate Pledge on Saturday have no idea about the feat or its upcoming 65th anniversary.

“Very few people in this country even knew about Olympic hockey back then – that there was such a thing,” he said. “So, it helped. It certainly helped to win the gold. We never got the media coverage like the 1980 team did. But we left a mark. And hockey in this country is better for it.”

*The name Squaw Valley is included with the intention to accurately represent history. However, the term is offensive, and the site name has since been changed to Yokuts Valley. Learn more about that here and the damaging impacts of mascot imagery and naming in sports here.