USA Hockey Foundation

Thirty years ago, the world was a different place.

Lionel Richie had the most popular song in America. Hair was large. There were no cell phones. And social media? There wasn’t even an internet in January 1986.

USA Hockey was different back then, too. The organization that governed American hockey was still five years away from officially adopting the USA Hockey name, instead existing formally under the moniker of Amateur Hockey Association of the United States (AHAUS).

At the time, USA Hockey teams had enjoyed occasional international success. With the exception of the 1980 Winter Olympics, however, teams that represented the U.S. in international competitions rarely won medals, let alone contended for championships.

That all began to change in January 1986.

Thirty years ago this month, Team USA’s top under-20 players won bronze medals at the IIHF World Junior Championship in Canada. This was the first-ever medal of any kind in the event for Team USA, which has since won three gold medals, a silver and four bronze medals – including bronze at the recent 2016 event – as well as a pair of Olympic silver medals and a championship at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey.

“We probably would like to take a little credit that in ’86 we maybe got things rolling,” said Tom Chorske, a winger on the 1986 U.S. National Junior Team that went on to play 12 professional seasons and win a Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 1995.

“But let’s face it. We had players coming along (after us) like Tony Amonte, Doug Weight, Billy Guerin, Mike Modano, Jeremy Roenick. There were a lot of Americans that were coming up behind us that built that momentum and success that USA Hockey has found for itself now.”

That talent, inspired as kids by the 1980 Miracle on Ice, eventually fueled a golden generation of American hockey players that brought USA Hockey to unprecedented heights in the 1990s and early 2000s. Before they won the 1996 World Cup of Hockey and left lasting impressions on the American players who rule the NHL today, this generation achieved its first international success at the 1986 IIHF World Junior Championship.

Eleven of the 1986 team’s 20 players went on to play in the NHL. Several, such as goalie Mike Richter, defenseman Eric Weinrich and forwards Craig Janney, Jimmy Carson and Scott Young, became stars.

Brian Leetch, the top player on the 1986 U.S. Junior National Team, eventually earned a place in both the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Eveleth, Minnesota, and Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I think when some of us looked around the locker room and looked at our roster, we saw the players we had and knew we could be good,” Young said. “But being so new and playing the year before (when the U.S. finished sixth), I remember playing against the Russians (in 1985) and thinking the others teams were in a whole different league.

“A year later, it was a different story. Were we confident that we were going to go in and win a gold? I don’t think guys would say that. But we knew we were a good team and we thought we could be really good and accomplish something. What that was, we learned as we went.”

The team began finding its way after a 7-5 loss to Finland dropped its record to 1-3-0 in the tournament. With three games remaining in a round-robin tournament in which there wasn’t a medal round, the U.S. needed victories against West Germany and Switzerland in its next two games to set up a confrontation with Sweden for bronze on the final day of the tournament.

“I remember we beat the Czechs and we realized that if we won the games we could end up at the end playing Sweden for a medal,” Young said. “The setup put us in a game where a win in that final game could get us a bronze medal.

“Earlier in the tournament, I remember vividly playing the Canadians and feeling like we could play with them. We knew that they were one of the powers and a tough team to beat. We lost 5-2, but we could compete with them.

“We were feeling good about the way we were playing and got to know each other a little bit more throughout the tournament. We came together.”

On the final day of the tournament, Jan. 4, 1986, it was no contest. The U.S. team routed Sweden 5-1 to secure the bronze, finishing the tournament with a 4-3-0 record.

The Soviet Union and Canada won the gold and silver medals, respectively, to maintain their reputations as the world’s two elite hockey superpowers. In the years that followed, they’d have company.

“Since 1986, USA Hockey has done a really good job of developing players at younger ages and in bringing them to camps and festivals and tracking them,” Chorske said. “When I was coming up, they were starting to have national festivals. But they were co-mingling summer sports and winter sports for summer festivals. We just went and had fun.

“Now, with the way they run their regional district camps and clinics at the local level, and then you graduate or get elected to the state level. And then at the state level you can be chosen for the national camp starting at age 15. They have a very clear picture of who their candidates are by the time they’re 17 years old.

“USA Hockey really gets a complete profile on them, on and off the ice. These days, the U.S. is expected to do well.”

Back in those days, however, consistent success for U.S hockey teams was a dream, if not a lofty aspiration. Based on what the 1986 World Junior team started 30 years ago this month, consistent success has become a reality.