Mark Wells, the last player added to the 1980 United States hockey team that became known as the famed “Miracle on Ice” gang at the Lake Placid Olympics, has died. He was 66.
The “Miracle on Ice” team announced his death Saturday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
A cause of death wasn’t announced.
“He was so much more than an Olympic hero,” Wells’ official Facebook page posted early Saturday afternoon. “He was a friend to everyone he met. Simply a great man. Please allow his family and loved ones the privacy they deserve in this time of great sorrow.”
Wells grew up in St. Clair Shores and graduated from Lake Shore High School in 1975, before playing at Bowling Green from 1975-79, despite having no scholarship until after his freshman season.
A standout forward, he was picked for Team USA ahead of the Lake Placid Olympics, after he had 83 points (26 goals) during his final season at Bowling Green.
He was small for his position, just 5-foot-9 and 175 pounds, and Brooks considered others to round out Team USA, but Wells lobbied Brooks and won the last spot. He won that final spot, unlike Brooks, the legendary coach who was the last player cut from the 1960 team that won the gold medal.
“I remember spitting at his feet and saying, ‘No, Herb, this is my dream,'” Wells, who was injured shortly before the 1980 Olympics, putting his roster spot in jeopardy, told the New York Times for a 2002 story. “I worked my butt off for years. Let me have a shot.”
He got that shot, and was assigned to defend Valeri Kharlamov, the Soviet Union’s best player, in the first game of medal play (back then, the Olympics used round-robin to determine the medalists). The Soviet Union had won the four previous gold medals and five of the previous six, and were heavily favored in 1980, but the United States stunned the giants, 4-3. ABC sportscaster Al Michaels declared, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”
Team USA went on to win the gold medal two days later, beating Finland.
Wells had three points (two goals) in the 1980 Olympics; the goals came against Norway and Romania in the tournament’s preliminary round.
Fellow Michigan native Ken Morrow, a Flint native and Wells’ teammate and roommate at Bowling Green, also was on the team.
“I had heard about Mark being this terrific player in the Detroit area when I was playing in Flint,” Morrow said in an interview on OctoPulse, The Detroit News/Detroit Red Wings’ podcast. “We were teammates on the Detroit Junior Red Wings in 1974-75 and we both got…
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