MADISON — Forty-six years after the Miracle on Ice, the moments and the meaning still haven’t faded.
Mark Johnson helped deliver one of the most iconic upsets in sports history at the 1980 Winter Olympics. Decades later, the gold medal still resonates — not just as a memory, but as the foundation of a coaching philosophy that made him the winningest coach in women’s hockey history.
“You know, yesterday someone came up to me and told me their son just watched Miracle for the first time,” Johnson said. “And my first reaction was, ‘Well… who won?’ Because my worst nightmare is I wake up one day and somebody tells me they lost that game.”
When asked what stays with him decades later, the answer goes beyond the final score.
“I think it’s the true joy of putting everything you had into something,” he said. “And then when it happened, it was better than you thought.”
That experience helped shape Johnson into the winningest coach in women’s hockey history.
“My coaching philosophy goes back to Lake Placid,” he explained. “Playing against a team that’s better than you. How you handle adversity. We spent six months together on that journey, and there were a lot of crazy things that happened. How do you push through it? How do you become a team? What does unity actually look like?”
Watch: Wisconsin Hockey Coach Mark Johnson reflects on Miracle on Ice
“If you want to win,” he adds, “the best chance you can give yourself is to actually become a team.”
Now, the eight-time national champion coach takes pride in watching his current and former players take the ice on the international stage.
“They’ve earned the right to be there,” Johnson said. “Now they need to go enjoy it. Play free. Don’t worry about anything. Go play up to your capabilities — and that should be enough.”
If he could speak to his younger Olympic self today, the message would be simple.
“If I knew we had a chance,” Johnson said, “I’d tell myself — enjoy it. You’ve got to enjoy it.”
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