Do you want to be an America.
It's a little tight yesterday thought the USA women's hockey team was able to capture gold yesterday Milan. An incredible performance by the US women. Al Haisi has battled against fresh standers out of the ice Albert Pasper teller with Defatsman high schools to the next stop color the overton here the United States. It's gold to go on. US women beat Canada again to get a gold medal, and the men are playing today. As a matter of fact, US takes on Slovakia three right now, Canada and Finland
are going those two teams win. They advanced to face each other in gold medal maax two point zero. This one for the men. And of course on this date forty six years ago this weekend, this happened eleven seconds.
You got ten seconds going on right now? Brow you word his name mentioned in the last play, and that of course is Ken Morrill, gold medal winner nineteen eighty miracle on ice team out of Mile Ma Mater Bowling Green State University, four time Stanley Cup champion, US Hockey Hall of Fame and with the Islanders are pro Scott and can you welcome to the show. How you been brother.
I'm doing great, Scott. It's always great to be talking hockey and Olympics with you.
All right, thank any thanks for joining. I know you're super busy, so I appreciate it. You know, you saw Quinn Hughes score the o time overtime winner for the men to advance the semi's defenseman Megan Keller, defense woman for the United States women's team, she walked.
Her by the way.
I would say, you know, two defenseman scoring, you got to be pretty high, pretty proud of that, the fact being a defenseman normally that doesn't happen. But who has better hands back in the day, you or Megan Keller?
Well she does right now, that's there. I mean I was. I was more known for my direct passes around the boards and my dumpings more than that.
She walked her defenseman. I was like, man, that was a move.
Wow, what a thrill? Yeah. Well, you know that's a game that will be remembered forever. And I mean, how about the dramatic endings in this Olympic tournament. You know, the women's game going to overtime, the gold medal game, and then the three or the four quarterfinal games. Of the men's the other day three of them went into overtime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that.
The fact that the women, it has been unbelievably compelling to watch the women and most of those games, and you know, they're what three hundred and eighty minutes something's shut out, I mean insane, right, like sixteen periods of shut out of hockey. They have a lot up until yesterday, one goal, so two goals and outscore the other team
thirty three goals to two. It almost harkens back to what you guys faced in the Dynasty of the Russians, of course in nineteen eighty beating the Russian men's team in the miracle ice game that you were in ken And it feels like that same kind of dominance in at least in this Olympics anyway.
Well, yes, there's a great comparison there. You know, back in nineteen eighty we didn't know it at the time, but you know, we inspired a whole generation of young kids. They came through in the nineties and turned into big stars. You know, they won the nineteen ninety six World Cup with players like Bill Gearn and Keith Kachuk and Mike
Madonald and Chris Chellison right on down the line. And then all of a sudden, we've got this newer generation that they inspired, and we're watching these these stars and superstars on Team USA play right now and then the women's game. Yes, they're doing exactly what we did back in nineteen eighty. There's a lot of young girls out there that are going to start playing hockey because of what they watched on TV. Yeah.
I mean, if you think about it, can you and your teammates in eighty are responsible before we are today in the sense is that, you know, women's sports was it was there, but it was not existent. Wasn't the late nineties that women's sports started coming on its own? And I will say the watching that game, it looked like for the US women's team, there's like ten of them out there the way they just dominated teams. And that's all on your shoulders, I would say.
Yeah, yeah, and this was by far, you know that. I mean, we have the teams in in the late nineties that want to gold medals there at the Olympics with Tammy Grenado and they started it all. And now we're seeing, you know, this, this newer generation of even better players coming through now and the pool is a lot deeper for the for the women's teams, and now we're seeing some of these other countries that are becoming very competitive. So it's just as I said, it's exploding right now.
Yeah, I would say too. I mean, at the end of the day, you look at it, and certainly the NHL is the you know, it's it's the dog of North American I should say American sports. Anyways, Yeah, and it's a long, uphill battle. A lot of reasons why Americans you know, don't lean in the game of hockey, but it certainly has grown, and it's all because of what happened in nineteen eighty and now we're you know, we're celebrating women's hockey in addition to the men's team,
and it'll be how cool will it be? By the way, if Canada can beat Finland here they're not doing so well right now, but it's early. If they could win and the US men advance, and now we have for the men's gold medal, it's Canada USA two point zero. I can't think of it more thrilling.
Anyhow, well, we got a taste of it with the Four Nations tournament.
Yeah, yeah, right, the.
Way it captured the country. And yeah, I mean we're seeing the best players in the world on the biggest stage in the world right now. And people have to remember with Olympic Hockey, it's not like the basketball tournament, you know, where you have a couple of powers and that's about it. In hockey, you've got six, seven, eight countries that are powers in hockey, So the games don't get any easier. I know, we like to pick favorites in this country, but right now, I mean Canada is
in a fight. The US is going to be in a fight later this afternoon.
Yeah, yeah, Canada's really fighting it out right. By the way, bo Horva plays for Team Canada if they do indeed face the Americans. Uh, were you aside on that? When Cammy's an Islander, he's one of your guys? Yeah, how does that work for you?
You can here for Yeah, I mean I care for him to have some individual success, but yeah, it's USA all the way for me.
Well, guys, just scout. I'm like, I don't know we can root against him. That's a maybe. I don't know, if you're gonna go Mick Cronin on me there for a second with your answer, I'm not sure.
But.
What do you what do you make a three?
By the way, By the way, he's having a terrific us with the Islanders and he's become, you know, one of our leaders there.
And right now with the with the with the Olympic break, you guys are holding still holding the playoff spot. So and you know, if you if you enjoyed this and you're new to hockey, watch NHL playoff or watch the games down the stretch, but particularly the postseason in NHL, there's nothing like it.
Yeah, we've had a good season so far, knocking and we're a fun team to watch. You know. We we had you know, something amazing happened in May and I was fortunate to be a part of it. We won the draft lottery and we get this young kid that just barely turned eighteen years old named Matthew Shaefer and he's already a big star in the league at eighteen years old, and it looks to be a future superstar.
And you know, the fortunes of our franchise changed in May, and you know, joining an already good team and so it's just been a.
Lot of fun to want it's been a long drought in a playoffs, but certainly Stanley Cup championships he won four straight, which is absolutely incredible. In Olympic hockey, the overtime, what do you make of the three on three over time? Are you old school? Going? I you know, twenty minutes, all players on the ice, everybody plays a three on three. I mean, it's I'm not a huge fan. It's exciting for the fans of the shootout in the NHL in the regular season, but three on three for all the
Marbles and the Olympics. What do you make of that?
You know, I'm old school and a lot of things, but I like it. I do like it. And here's the reason why I've watched over time since it was incorporated, I don't know, back in the early two thousands, I think in pro hockey, and I just see the excitement of the fans when they're watching it. It's it's just tremendous hockey to watch when these these skilled players have all this open ice. And I'd much rather see a
game decided three on three than in a shootout. I'm not a fan of the soccer shootout, right, and I like, you know, to get a game decided, you have to, you know, pair down the numbers to three on three. If you go five on five, you could be playing another sixty minutes of hockey. I mean, I remember playing in a four overtime games with the New York Islanders. You know that was an extra two hours of hockey to decide in overtime game. Yeah.
Yeah, And it's just so tight and yeah, it's like I mean, it's exciting to watch. And I think it favored the US women particularly too, because of the speed element.
That they had.
But we'll see how this plays. I'd imagine the men's game if again, you know, you don't want to look past it, because everyone thought by the way, you know, speaking looking past things, you know something about this ken because you know, you beat the Russians everything. Oh yeah they won the gold medal. No they didn't. You had a whole other game to play after.
That, exactly. And I don't know that a lot of people know it. Everybody knows the ice game, Soviets, but you know, the way it was set up back then was a little different. Right now, the way the Rockets work, they have two semi final games and a final with the two winners. Well, back in our day, back in nineteen eighty, they had a medal round and so we
carried in points from the preliminary round. So when we went into the medal round with the four teams, the Soviets already had two points because they had won their or their preliminary game against Finland. We carried in one point, Sweden carried in one point, in Finland carried none. So even though we had beaten the Soviets, there was still a chance that if we hadn't beaten Finland on that Sunday morning, that we may not have won any medal at all.
Yeah, and it wasn't like you guys rolled Finland. And there's the famous among many famous Herb Brooks quotes, of course, you know in the room there and the second if you lose this, you'll take it to your graves and he turns around and goes to your bleeping f and graves. And we saw that in the movie Miracle, which I think it's cool that a lot of the younger players, the men and the women for that matter, grew up watching that movie. They really know about the eighty team
seen it live. Of course they weren't born, but they've all watched a miracle a million times and remember that was that realistic in what he said in the movie?
Yeah, it was. Yeah, Yeah, you don't forget, you know, after giving this great after giving this great motivational speech. You know, before the Russian game, you were born to be a player, you were meant to be here. This is your moment too. Yes, is coming into the locker room at the end of the second period. We were down to one and if you lose this game, you'll
take it to your bleeping grave. And as the guys talk about, you know, he wasn't a swearing man, so yeah, you know, bus Schneider I think was quoted as saying, we knew what he meant, you know, we knew what he was trying to get across. How does that?
How was something like that go over?
Ken?
How's that something go over in the room? And we saw the reaction to the movie. But like you personally, when we dropped that line and he swore, which he doesn't swear, and he did that, it's like, did that put more pressure on you? Did it? What's your reaction as a professional.
Athlete to that? No, you know, here's a great story. Our assistant coach Craig Patrick was standing outside the locker room. I'd never heard the story until a couple of years ago, and he said Herb came up to him at the end of the second period. Again we're down to one, and Herb says, Craig, you got to go into the room and talk to the guys. They're just now listening to me. So Craig says, he turned around, stepped into the room and he said he got two words out.
He said, hey, guys, and he said. Everybody was up on their feet, jumping up and down. Jack O'Callahan, i think, turned to him and said, Craig, get the heck out of here. There's no way we're losing to a bunch of Finske said, he turned out round, walked back out or said. How did it go? He said, I think went okay. So having said that, yeah, we were you know,
we had this group of you know, character guys. All of these guys on our team had been captains and saw and we knew what was in front of us, and our proudest moment through the whole two week tournament was that third period and came out and just blew them out of the water.
Yeah, yeah, you turned you turned it on and kind of like the women did yesterday, you know, they they they came out pretty flat, and they were flat for most of that game, and then you could tell the tide was starting to turn midway a little bit more than midway through that third period with the US women in Canada yesterday, and they spent a lot of time in their zone and finally Polo goalie and and I wind up scoring with a couple of minutes left, the tying,
the one that sent to OT and then the OT winner. So the little parallels there.
Yeah, well, credit to Canada. They played a really strong game, and you know, the US was the better team going into the game, but it kind of shows you what can happen when a team really buckles down and he gets some good goaltending. So hey, you know, the US came through with the heart of a champion with the way they came back and won that game.
Yeah, it's so fun to watch Ken Morrill, member of the nineteen eighty Miracle on Ice team, joining the Scotsland's here show here on seven hundred w ALW with the men playing this afternoon Canada in a game right now against Finla they're down to the first intermission. I don't want to ruin it for you here, but it's still early. A lot of hockey left to be played there. So uh, it is an incredible story and one that is going to be absolutely timeless. Would this be if the women
win gold, the men win gold? Let's say, is that the pinnacle of US hockey? Do you think you have the men and the women both gold medal champions?
Well, I think you would have to say so. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, they'll let's you know, they'll never be another nineteen eighty. I'll first of all, I'll say that, you know, the way it's been remembered, the way it will always be remembered. There's no as al Michael said, what could top that? Nothing? Nothing, you know, but that having said that, yes, this would be the pinnacle. The
US has been building towards this for many years. You know, we've we've become a superpower on the hockey stage, and this would just be Yeah, this would top it all off. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, these are professional players, but it's the world's best athletes going at it. I know there's something And these days when we talked Ken about nil money and all that, but you know, at the end of the day, it's about watching the best athletes perform at the peak level of their sports. And we'll see that with in other sports as well, where professional athletes are
allowed to play. Because for the longest time, you know, and this is the knock on the Olympic committees from the USA, is that, you know, the Russians we mentioned the beginning in Soviets, for a long time had professional grown men playing a boys sport, and that's why they just dominated as long as they did that. This is more compelling to me than that.
Yeah, well, hey, you know, the Olympics are the pinnacle in the sports world and I think, you know, you have a lot of these players, let's say, all these hockey players that have played for Stanley Cups, that have played for world championships. This is on another level and I think they're finding that out guys that haven't had
this experience. All you got to do is just look at their faces, you know, of all these athletes, the pride, the exhilaration, sometimes the heartbreak that comes with the Olympics, it's just yeah, it's it's it's a sporting event unlike any other yeah.
Ken, more, if I want to let you go, there are many people in the world who have won a gold medal and also one in your case, four Stanley Cup rings as well. Is there something and I play off hockey's the greatest, but is there something that the camp Becket complicated? Even with the Stanley Cup run that you got on the Olympics?
Boy, I you know, I can't think of anything. You know, I've I've it's so fortunate to be able to compare the two experiences of winning and gold medal and then winning a Stanley Cup. And yeah, at least in the hockey world that you know I've As you said, I was the only one for a long time that had that had won both. And then when players come in, there's been some other players. But let's help we can see some some US players, players that pull that feet off. All right?
Well, Kenny, thanks for this. I appreciate I know you're you're probably talked out about it, but maybe I mean this time every year people blow you up, but especially the Olympics. But I so appreciate taking time out of your schedule to chat here Instincy.
Always fun to talk hockey.
Thanks all right, pal, take care. Thank you, Ken Morrow, Stanley Cup Champion, nineteen eight OL Miracle on Ice team Bowling Green alumni. What's not to love about all that? It's pretty exciting. Yeah, if you're just into the sport now and going, wow, this is pretty this is pretty good. You know, we've got great hockey with the Cyclones here locally if you want to watch it live. But also you know, the NHL second season is about the start
and there's there's really nothing better. So you talk about playoffs, it is something to see for sure. Let me get a time. I'm out in We got Allie Martin in the way local loop of course, because we're keeping it lighter. We got some heavy stuff happening, actually breaking news this morning, and we'll get more and I'm sure Willie's going to get more in this this little time to chat up on it. I'll get back on it a Monday. And that, of course is the Supreme Court striking down Trump's tariffs.
Huge news. We'll get a full recap as this story is just developing here on seven hundred WLW