215: Mike Eruzione Podcast

In today’s episode of ‘Finding your Summit’ podcast, host Mark Pattison, former NFL Player, Entrepreneur, Philanthropist and mountaineer who has climbed the Seven Summits, talks with guest, Mike Eruzione (an American former Ice Hockey Player and an Olympic Gold Medalist). He shares his experience as a Team Leader, and talks about his hockey journey.
Listen to “EP 215: Miracle on Ice Mike Eruzione Podcast” on Spreaker.

Episode Highlights

• 2:15 – Mike shares that Olympic Games mean more than just winning a gold medal.
• 3:49 – He highlights that people still think we only played one game.
• 6:51 – Mark inquires about the magic formula of that team to make it so powerful.
• 8:00 – As per Mike, they were a group of players who not only believed in themselves, but believed in each other.
• 10:19 – Mark inquires if they felt any kind of pressure in that kind of way.
• 12:14 – Mike says that they didn’t feel any pressure because they redistributed amongst all the other teammates that they had on a team.
• 16:33 – According to him, the reason for his success as a good athlete is because he played everything.
• 18:33 – They discuss that there may be other athletes in the world that are a little better than them, but they are one of the best.
• 20:17 – Mike wrote a book that is ‘The Making of a Miracle: The Untold Story of the Captain of the 1980 Gold Medal–Winning U.S. Olympic Hockey Team”.
• 22:08 – He states that in the Making of a Miracle, we’ll get to know about his stories and his life that people don’t know about.
• 24:45 – As per Mike, hockey is in a great state right now.
• 26:37 – Mike points out that the training that they go through, the foods that they’re eating, are way different than what we would eat and drink.
• 28:14 – Mark asks, “What does life look like for you going forward?”
• 29:09 – Mike says he is no different today than he was when he was a senior in high school.

3 Key Points

1. Mental health is a big problem in this country, and not only in sports, but everywhere.
2. The best players have to be a great teammate as well.
3. Players are a lot better, and fourth lines today are better than fourth lines back 25 or 30 years ago.

Tweetable Quotes

“I could see people coming up to me 40 years later and saying, boy, that was a great Olympics, but damn if you only could have beat Finland to win the gold medal.” – Mike Eruzione

“The weakest link of the chain has to be rowing in the same direction with everybody.” – Mark Pattison

“We didn’t feel pressure because we weren’t expected to win, maybe.” – Mike Eruzione

“My example is to just be myself. You can’t become somebody different.” – Mike Eruzione

“I don’t care if anybody reads them, but I want my grandkids, and someday their kids to know who I was and what my family was all about.” – Mike Eruzione

“You know my wife gets frustrated because I’m always happy and I’ve always got a smile on my face.” – Mike Eruzione