Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the USA and MIAA hockey legend, a graduate of Winthrop
High School, Mike Eruzione.
A native on of Winthrop Massachusetts, Mike Eruzione captained his hockey team at Winthrop
Senior High School before playing four standout years at Boston University.
But it was his time as captain of the legendary 1980 Olympic hockey team where Mike became
a national hero.
He scored Team USA's game-winning goal against the Soviet Union in one of the greatest moments
in American sports history,
and helped lead his team to the gold medal that we still celebrate today.
Everybody, when they talk about Eruzione you usually hear "the guy scored one goal and
he's set for life."
What do you think about that?
They don't know who I am.
You know, football was my passion in high school, I played more baseball than any sport.
Hockey was something I did in the wintertime.
And you lived in a multi-family home, right, and went through like —?
I lived in a three family house which I live next-door to now, and we lived on the first
and the second floor and I had four sisters and a brother.
You know, growing up in that three family I look back on my life as, not as so much
as an athlete as a person.
It was the greatest place you could live, I thought everybody lived in a three family.
So it's just a great place to live and I still live there now.
As we got older in the house, Christmas time and holidays,
all the family would go to my floor and my dad would take out the guitar and he'd play
and sing and my sisters and aunts an uncles,
we'd all sing songs and Christmas songs, and my uncle every once in a while would ask my
father to recite "O Captain!
My Captain!"
That was kind of somewhat of a ritual around the house that every once in a while around
the holidays,
my uncle would tell my father to do "O Captain!
My Captain!" and my father would dramatize the whole thing.
He was a character.
He was a good man, he was a working man, he worked three jobs, he loved his wife, he loved
his kids, he loved his friends.
And he took great pride in his children.
My dad passed away a few years ago, lived a great life, 93 years old, taught me a lot
of great things, couldn't ice skate worth a soul.
I remember when I played one time at BU I had a breakaway during the game and I missed
the breakaway and the game was over and my dad,
he was waiting for me and I said, "Pretty good game" he goes "Yeah."
I said "Boy, the goalie made a nice save in that breakaway," he said "You should have
deked the goalie."
I said "What?"
He said "You should have deked the goalie."
Now deking the goalie is when you fake the goalie out, I said "Really?
What does deke mean?"
He goes "I don't know, but the guy behind me told me you should have deked the goalie."
So I learned don't listen to my father about ice hockey, but the values and the lessons
were important.
We had some things in common and a lot of it would be our work ethic, you know my dad
worked hard and he instilled that in me.
You know when I played hockey, football and baseball, it didn't matter if I struck out
or dropped a fumble or didn't score a goal.
It was important that I worked hard.
The only poem I know anything about is "O Captain!
My Captain!"
and it has nothing to do with me as captain of me high school hockey team or captain of
Boston University or captain of an Olympic team.
I heard this poem when I was seven, eight, nine years old when my father used to recite
"O Captain!
My Captain!"
Certain words he would stress a little more, you know.
I don't remember all of them, but I do remember the endings wasn't just "fallen cold and dead."
It was like "fallen, cold, and dead."
"O Captain, My Captain!" by Walt Whitman.
O Captain!
My Captain!
Our fearful trip is done.
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won.
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, while follow eyes the steady
keel, the vessel grim and daring.
But o heart! Heart! Heart!
O the bleeding drops of red, where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead.
O Captain!
My Captain!
Rise up and hear the bells.
Rise up, for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills.
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths, for you the shores a-crowding.
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.
Here Captain!
Dear father!
The arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck, you've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still.
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, from fearful trip the victor
ship comes in with object won.
Exult o shores, and ring o bells!
But I with mournful tread, walk the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead.