Boston’s Favorite Olympian on What It Takes — And What It Doesn’t

Before Mike "Rizzo" Eruzione took the ice as Captain of the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic hockey team, before he scored the winning goal for the USA in a medal-round matchup against the Soviet Union, and before ABC sportscaster Al Michaels coined the iconic phrase "Do you believe in miracles?" Mike spent his childhood playing sports with friends. Outside all day, in an unassuming park near his family's Winthrop triple-decker, Rizzo, like many kids born in the pre-social-media 1950s, loved playing all sorts of sports until the streetlights went on and it was time to head home.

Eruzione spoke about his family and near-North Shore upbringing with New Boston Post in the run-up to the Winter Olympics, now taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea, 38 years after its most famous occurrence.