(NewsNation Now) — If you were around in 1980, you remember where you were. If you weren’t, you’ve heard the stories of the miracle on ice.

It was about a group of little known hockey players representing Team U.S.A., in one of the best versions of David vs. Goliath the world will ever see. The U.S.A and the then-Soviet Union were playing to advance to the gold medal game.

Rob McClanahan, one of the players on Team U.S.A., joined “NewsNation Prime” on the anniversary of the big win.

“For me and for the all my teammates, it was not just the two weeks in Lake Placid. It started in late July of ’79 and in early August, where we came together, and we became really, really good friends and a really good team.” McClanahan said.

The United States upset the Soviet Union 4-3. The memory is still vivid for McClanahan 42 years later.

“You ask to a member we will say it was the longest 10 minutes of our lives after Rizzo scored his goal,” McClanahan said.

McClanahan was a college hockey player when he made the lineup for the 1980 Olympic team. He then went on to play professionally.

“We knew if we showed up and competed, we had a chance,” McClanahan said.

During the Cold War, the faceoff became so much more than a game. McClanahan said they didn’t realize it at that moment, but later understood the magnitude of the win.

“It’s a little different today,” McClanahan said of the current Ukraine crisis. “I don’t know if we’re quite as far along today. But the fact that we were able to to succeed in what we did, it just made us as a team really proud to be Americans.”

The team, he says, still stays in contact to this day.

“We’re brothers, you know, we get together and we enjoy one another’s company,” McClanahan said