Losing A Beloved Friend & Teammate
Mark Pavelich's Pass Helped Beat The Soviets And Shock The World
The 8,500-seat ice arena at the Lake Placid Olympic Center was packed on the evening of February 22, 1980, standing room only! The nation, the world, was glued to their television sets, watching a quickly assembled group of college kids, Team USA, take on the best hockey team in the world, the Soviet Union.
With the Olympic hockey semifinal game tied at 3, and 10 minutes left in the game, Buzz Schneider took a pass on the left wing, skated over center ice and fired a long slapshot toward the goal so his group could get off the ice in a line change. But center Mark Pavelich was still on the ice as Mike Eruzione hopped over the boards, watching the puck bounce back onto the left side of the Olympic-sized rink where Pavelich skated to the bouncing black disk, knowing he had two teammates coming up behind him. Despite losing an edge and starting to fall, the crafty center was able to backhand the puck toward the middle of the ice where the U.S. Olympic captain, Eruzione, took control of the puck, squared up and fired a hard wrist-shot to the left side of the Soviet defender who was blocking the view of goalie, Vladimir Myshkin; the puck sailing into the lower left corner of the net for the goal that would put the United States Olympic hockey team ahead 4-3. The American kids fought for the next 10 minutes to defend that one-goal lead and eventually beat the best hockey team in the world and advance to the championship round.
The U.S. team went on to beat Finland in the championship game and win the Olympic Gold Medal, but beating the Soviets, a team that beat the NHL All-Stars 6-0, was the real prize.
In retrospect, if Mark Pavelich doesn’t feed that puck back to the middle of the ice, there may have been no Miracle On Ice Team. If Mike Eruzione doesn’t receive that blind pass, he doesn’t get the opportunity to take the great shot, doesn’t score and the game remains tied. That’s how important that one play was for attaining that victory.
But it was only one in a series of big, important plays by Pavelich. In the team’s first Olympic contest against Sweden, USA was down 2-1 in the final minute of play when coach Herb Brooks pulled his goalie, Jim Craig. After a faceoff in Sweden’s end, Schneider fought for the puck behind the net, sending it along the boards where Pavelich took it, turned, and saw Baker. With only 27 seconds remaining in the game, he fed him with a beautiful pass and the big defenseman slammed it home to tie the game at 2 and keep Team USA’s medal hopes alive. Then two days later, against the powerful Czechoslovakian team, the game was tied at 2 in the second period when Pavelich flew up the right wing and into the Czech zone, stopped hard on the faceoff circle, spun around and backhanded a perfect pass to linemate Schneider, who poked it in for a score to give USA a 3-2 lead, which they would keep, winning the game 7-3.
Pavelich, like Mark Johnson, like Buzz Schneider, like John Harrington, Bill Baker, Rob McClanahan, Dave Silk, Neal Broten, Steve Christoff, Dave Christian, Ken Morrow, Jack O’Callahan, Mike Ramsey, Bob Suter, Mike Eruzione and Jim Craig - all of his teammates - each made big plays at some point during their seven Olympic games, which kept their team’s medal hopes alive, playing as a team, and winning as a team. It’s one of the major reasons they were so close, connected, brothers on a quest for the gold. There wasn’t one big star, but a team of very talented college kids who wanted to win badly and played as a unit to take the Gold Medal.
That same evening in a southwest suburb outside of Chicago, my teammates and I had just defeated the Marquette University Warriors at Southwest Ice Arena 4-3 in a game of bad blood and plenty of fights carried over from our previous game against them in Milwaukee, where it got so out of hand that fans were actually trying to get on the ice to help throw punches at us. After the final horn at our game at Southwest Ice Arena, the refs helped escort both squads off the ice to avoid having another fight break out. As we exited the rink, we were greeted by one of our former teammates who was anxiously awaiting to tell us that Team USA had beat the Soviets. There was a unified reaction, great elation, shock, shouts of joy and jubilation about that incredible news. We were all so happy for the team, but ecstatic for our teammate Rich Ford, who was a very good friend of Mark Pavelich.
Mark and Rich grew up together in the small northern town of Eveleth, Minnesota and played on the same team, the same line, from Squirts to Pee Wee to high school. During their senior year at Eveleth High, their team went 21-2 before losing in the Sectional Championship to Grand Rapids. They were good friends, teammates, buddies.
“They put me on the line with him, because they knew I could keep up with him,” said Rich, who never considered his talent close to that of Pavelich. “Mark had four eyes. He could see everything out there. Really smart! He was so good at setting up his linemates.”
After graduation, Mark was recruited to the University of Minnesota-Duluth and Rich to Chicago State University by Doc Rodgers, a Minnesota native who turned the Cougars into a powerhouse championship program.
Richie, as we called him, was about 5’9”, slim but muscular and always exhibiting Minnesota Nice, the ever-friendly attitude of the residents which the North Star State is so well known for across the country. He was very well liked by all of his teammates, and regardless of his exceptional skill level, never showed an ounce of arrogance.
Having played with him for three years, I can’t imagine Richie and Mark on the same line together, two really fast, really quick players. It must have driven opposing coaches crazy. And both guys play a similar unselfish style game, always looking to set up their teammates. Together growing up, they were feeding right wingers, Ronn Tomassoni and Bob Hallstrom, who were quite good at putting the pucks fed to them into the net. And on Team USA, Pavelich was setting up Buzz Schneider and John Harrington, two players who also grew up in the Iron Range area, but were opponents of Mark and Richie during their high school days. Their line scored the most points for Team USA, Pavelich credited as the catalyst.
“He was a genius, how quickly he could think the game,” said Harrington about the speedy center with incredible vision on the ice.
For Richie at Chicago State, his setup passes were going to Tom Kurzawski and Mike Presbitero, both great goal scorers. That line, plus our incredible goalie, Bob Janecyk, is what led to our team winning our college conference championship, defeating Illinois State in February of 1978.
We had all heard the stories from Richie about Mark. We knew how close they were and how proud our number 19 was of the kid he had shared so much time with growing up. They were as close as brothers. So upon hearing the news of the big win over the Soviets, we all knew how happy Richie was for his friend’s success, even though he hadn’t even received the details of the game by that point. Afterwards, we all headed up to the restaurant/bar at the rink overlooking the ice. It was there, we watched the replays on the television mounted high on the wall and happily witnessed Richie’s buddy making that big play, feeding the puck back to Eruzione who thrilled the country, the world, with an incredible shot that turned into the game-winning goal.
Anyone who played with Richie Ford respected him for his incredible talent and unselfish play. In all of my time playing hockey, I had never seen any player as quick as him. He was amazing! So often when he was skating up with the puck, he would have a defender or two come at him hard, attempting to check him, knock him out of the game. Somehow, Richie would stop, or spin, or dart away from the hit, still keeping the puck and moving up the ice. I saw him make those incredible, seemingly instinctive, moves dozens of times. I was always amazed by it.
“Mark taught me to do that one summer,” said Richie, who watched his pal perform those same moves at the Chicago Stadium while playing for the New York Rangers against the Blackhawks. Pavelich went undrafted after the Olympics, and played professionally in Switzerland for one year, before Herb Brooks was named the head coach of the Rangers and brought the dependable center back to the U.S. to play for him again. He knew what he would add to the team, and for the next five years, Mark Pavelich built a good NHL career. During the 1981-82 season, he totaled 76 points (combination of goals & assists), a team record by a rookie which still stands today. In 1983, he scored five goals in a game, the only U.S. born player to do so in the NHL.
After their hockey days, Richie and Mark stayed great friends, often going fishing together on Deer Lake near Mark’s home in Lutsen, a village in northeastern Minnesota on the shore of Lake Superior. Whether fishing on Deer Lake or a lake they loved in Idaho, certainly the once great hockey players were also avid outdoors men, who appreciated the peace and quiet offered on a remote lake, holding a fishing pole fully prepared for the fun and excitement brought about by the tug on the line and battle to haul in their catch.
While fishing, Richie heard all the stories from Mark about his days with the Olympic team and the Rangers. The two went to New York together in 2009 where Richie met some of Mark’s Olympic teammates and received a signed team photo, which he cherished, and has hanging on the wall of his home.
But life after hockey confronted Mark with a host of challenges. He lost his beautiful wife, Kara, when she died of injuries suffered from falling off an unfinished balcony they were adding to their home in 2012. Seven years later while fishing, Mark was charged with felony assault for beating a neighbor with a metal pole, thinking the neighbor had spiked his beer. He was committed to state psychiatric hospital in Minnesota. Some family members and former teammates believed he may have been suffering from CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) resulting from blows to the head during his playing days.
“Mark did have some issues here about 10 years ago,” said Richie. “He was ice fishing and had his feet in the water and got really cold. He couldn’t warm up after that day. It really affected him. No-one knew about this and we couldn’t figure out why he was screwed up, but he finally got some medication that helped him.
“And, he was really down for the last three years. There was a year and a half where he wasn’t accepting any calls. I just let it go.”
On February 28, Mark received a group text from some of his Olympic teammates wishing him a happy 63rd birthday. It was a happy day. Four days later however, he was found dead by a staff member at Eagle’s Healing Nest, a rehabilitation center in Sauk Centre, Minnesota where he was receiving treatment.
“For the last month and a half, Mark was not incarcerated,” explained Richie, who was shocked and saddened when he received the bad news about his friend. “But at home, he lived in a small community and felt unwelcomed.
“I do miss him a lot. And all I can say is Mark Pavelich was a great guy!”
Nice friend of mine
Well, what can I say