Amateur and International Career
McClanahan attended Mounds View High School and went on to play three seasons with the University of Minnesota, winning the 1979 NCAA national ice hockey championship. After representing the U.S. at the 1979 Ice Hockey World Championship tournament in Moscow, McClanahan joined the U.S. Olympic team on a full-time basis and scored 34 goals in 63 exhibition games. The culmination of McClanahan's amateur career came at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, New York when he scored five goals in seven games while helping his country win the gold medal. He scored the winning goal in the gold medal game against Finland (which the U.S. came back to win 4-2) two days after the historic American victory over the Soviets.
During the opening game of the Olympic tournament against Sweden, McClanahan sustained a bruise on the upper thigh, which left the U.S. team short another player, as teammate Jack O'Callahan had been injured during the exhibition game against the Soviet Union only three days prior to the Olympics. A famed argument between McClanahan and Team USA's coach Herb Brooks helped motivate McClanahan to play through his injury and inspire his team to a come-from-behind draw against Sweden that was vital to the team's gold medal success later in the tournament.
Read more about this topic: Rob McClanahan
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