Seamus O'coughlin

Squaw Valley Gold: American Hockey's Olympic Odyssey Seamus O'coughlin

The 1980 Olympic Winter Games in Squaw Valley, literally introduced winter sports, particularly ice hockey, to the American public through television. During the average minute the Olympics were on the air, 26.1% of homes with sets (black and white only) were tuned in. Twenty million Americans watched the nationally televised game between the U. S. and Russia on Saturday afternoon, February 27, more than the combined audience of all other programs on the air at the same time. Squaw Valley Gold tracks the struggle over control of amateur hockey in the United States from the world tournament at the 1920 Olympic Summer Games in Antwerp, Belgium to America's first gold medal in Olympic ice hockey, a largely misunderstood and forgotten period in the country's sports history. The Squaw Valley Games were also known as the Hollywood Olympics. Walt Disney programmed the pageantry and invited his movie friends to the party. Europeans fretted and fumed over the Disneyland atmosphere, but the athletes, housed together in a private Olympic Village, and the spectators had a great time hanging out with Bing Crosby, Marlene Dietrich, Jayne Mansfield, Roy Rogers, Red Skelton and Danny Kaye.