Editor’s note: The following story was submitted for the Shaler Area Student Section, a collaboration between TribLive and The Oracle, the student newspaper of Shaler Area High School.
In 1984, Eddie Olczyk made the USA Olympic hockey team at only 16 years old. He turned 17 that August and is one of only two players that young to ever make the USA Olympic hockey team.
There was a unique pressure on the 1984 team as it was playing in the large shadow of the 1980 Miracle on Ice team that beat the Soviet Union in one of the most famous games in U.S. sports history and then won the gold medal by beating Finland.
“There was a lot of pressure on our team. We could only equal what the 1980 Miracle on Ice team did. They were a bunch of college kids and shocked the world,” Olczyk said.
In the ’84 Olympics, the U.S. suffered a disappointing loss its first game, 4-2 to Canada.
“Twelve days earlier, we had played Canada in Milwaukee in an exhibition game before we went to the Olympics. I think we beat them 10-3 or 10-4, which ended up as probably the worst thing that ever happened to us. Maybe we were a little bit too confident going into game one of the Olympics.”
The U.S. would not come close to matching the success of the 1980 team (the Americans finished in seventh place), but playing on the Olympic team at such a young age helped Olczyk as it taught him what it takes to be a professional.
“I was probably too immature to understand the magnitude of walking in the opening ceremonies and thinking: Four years ago, I was 13 years old watching what a lot of people still feel is the greatest accomplishment of any team in any team sport in history, the 1980 Miracle on Ice team. I think for me, I think it helped me be ready for being an 18-year-old — eventually the next year in my hometown here in Chicago playing for the Blackhawks. I grew up very quickly. It forced me to mature very quickly, to have been there and walked in the opening ceremonies and to have played,” Olczyk said.
But that was not the end of Olczyk’s association with USA Hockey. According to his page on ushockeyhalloffame.com, Olczyk represented the U.S. nine times on the international stage during his career, including helping Team USA to a second-place finish in the 1991 Canada Cup. He was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012.
In addition to his USA hockey playing career, Olczyk has been a part of many USA hockey broadcasts as one of the top color analysts on television. That association allowed him to witness American Olympic success that he missed out on as a player in 1984 when Team USA won Olympic gold in February for the first time since 1980 when the U.S. beat Canada 2-1 in overtime.
It was one of the best games that Olczyk has ever called, and it came with a lot of emotion for the U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer.
“To be there and to see Team USA win their first gold medal in men’s hockey since 1980 — a lot of emotion came from that. It took me back to my childhood. It took me back to knowing how important (the Miracle on Ice) was for the game of hockey, how important it was for me and inspired me to want to play hockey and to want to play in the Olympics. To be able to call a game like that in front of 26 million people was incredible,” Olczyk said.
His hockey experience goes beyond his time with USA Hockey.
In June 1984, Olczyk was drafted third overall in the NHL Draft by his hometown team: the Chicago Blackhawks, two picks after the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted Mario Lemieux with the first pick in that draft.
Olczyk would go on to have a very successful career playing for six teams, including the Pittsburgh Penguins where he got to play with Lemieux, and the New York Rangers with whom he won the Stanley Cup in the 1993-94 season.
Looking back at his career, Olczyk said some of his favorite memories in his career were his first goal in the NHL as well as a game-winning goal in the playoffs that made NHL history on top of it.
“Whenever you score your first goal in the National Hockey League, that’s something that you’ll never forget. I happened to score my first goal in my first game against our arch rivals, the Detroit Red Wings. It wasn’t a very important goal. I think it was the seventh goal of a 7-2 win. You kind of feel like you arrive, when you score that first goal in the National Hockey League,” Olczyk said.
“Another one of my favorites, I was playing in Toronto in the ’88-’89 playoffs and we were playing in Detroit. I scored a power play goal, a shorthanded goal and the overtime game-winning goal. I’m the only player, believe it or not, in NHL history that has ever accomplished that. There have been a lot of hat tricks, but again, specifically power play, shorthanded and the overtime winner. So that’s something that I am overly proud of, especially when we get to playoff time,” Olczyk said.
He would go on to play 17 seasons in the NHL. He would finish his career playing 1,031 games and recording 452 assists and 342 goals for 794 points.
He spent parts of two seasons with the Penguins (1996-98), and then joined the team as an announcer (2000-03) and was then hired as the team’s head coach (2003-05) for a short tenure. Those times became special parts of his career and how it impacted him and his family life.
“Knowing the success of the Penguins and being drafted the same year as No. 66 — Mario went first, I went third — and to be able to play with Mario, Jaromír Jágr and Ron Francis, some legends of the Penguins — then to be able to do TV and coach in Pittsburgh was special. A lot of, almost nine years, of my professional life was spent in the ’Burgh. It’s just always been a special part of my life. It always will be,” Olczyk said.
Following Olczyk’s playing days, he began a color commentating career in hockey in 2000. He worked with Hall of Fame announcer Mike Lange during that time.
“I got a chance to work with the Hall of Famer, the late, great Mike Lange. He’s a legend in the ’Burgh and was a mentor to me, and helped me become a better broadcaster. We had a boatload of fun,” Olczyk said.
After those three years working with Lange at Fox Sports Net Pittsburgh, the Penguins would come calling with another job offer, wanting Olczyk as head coach of a rebuilding team.
Olczyk coached them for two seasons before being let go in December 2005. He returned to the broadcast booth at home in Chicago, becoming the color analyst for the Blackhawks regional television broadcasts and also would serve as the lead NHL color commentator for NBC, calling NHL games for them until 2021.
Everything was going great for Olczyk until Aug. 4, 2017, when he was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer.
After a few days of not feeling well, Olczyk realized something was wrong. He got himself into the hospital and next thing he knew, doctors performed surgery on him, removing a tumor the size of a fist. The road to full recovery and becoming cancer-free was a long and difficult road that really pushed Olczyk to the brink.
“I don’t think in my life I have ever wanted to quit anything, but for my second treatment of 12, I was ready to quit because my side effects were at their worst. That’s just the way that it was. I was ready to quit. And I was thinking, ‘Well, if I can’t get through today, how am I going to get through the next six months?’ For the first time in my life, I was ready to bail,” Olczyk said.
But it was his wife who changed his outlook on the situation and gave him the drive he needed to not give up and keep pushing gave him the incentive to keep fighting.
“If my wife would have let me bail, I would not be here today. That I know for sure,” he said.
Olczyk recalled his wife urging him, “You gotta fight. You gotta fight for me, you gotta fight for our kids, and you gotta fight for everybody that loves you.”
So that’s what he did. Olczyk would keep fighting and on March 22, 2018, he would be officially cancer-free. He encourages everyone to “look after yourself. If you just don’t feel right, it doesn’t matter what it is, and it doesn’t have to be cancer. It could be anything. There are people that are out there willing to help and to guide you and get you the medical attention that you need.”
This past December on NHL Hockey Fights Cancer Night on TNT, Olczyk shared a message encouraging those who are fighting a battle that he knows too well.
“I’d like to talk to the people in the battle. When I was in the battle I felt like I was alone. There were days I was ready to quit. I felt like I was a burden. I felt like I had let people down because I had cancer. I want everyone to know out there that you are not alone,” Olczyk said that night on TNT. “That’s the thing about cancer. It tests your will to live. Every day. If I was by myself, I would not be here today. Battle for the people that we lost, battle for the people that are in the battle. There are a lot of people that will be in the battle in the future. We have to battle and inspire them.”
From his days as the youngest player for Team USA to his time in the NHL to his rise to a national broadcaster to his battle with cancer, Olczyk has always been a fighter. That mentality has helped him become the inspiring success he is today.