Herb Brooks

American ice hockey player and coach whose most notable achievement came in 1980 as head coach of the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team at Lake Placid. At the Games, Brooks' American team upset the heavily favoured Soviet team in a match that came to be known as the "Miracle on Ice."

From 1960 to 1970, Brooks set a record by playing for the U.S. national team eight times, including the 1964 and 1968 Olympic teams. While playing for the Rochester Mustangs in the United States Hockey League in the 1961–1962 season, he formed part of the highest-scoring forward line in USHL history at the time, along with Bill Reichart and Ken Johannson.

Brooks also coached multiple National Hockey League (NHL) teams, as well as the French team at the 1998 Winter Olympics. He ultimately returned to coach the U.S. men's team to a silver medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. At the time of his death in 2003, he was the director of player personnel for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Brooks was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1990 and the IIHF Hall of Fame in 1999. He was honoured posthumously with the Wayne Gretzky International Award in 2004 and inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2006.

Brooks married Patricia Lane, known as Patti, in 1965. They had two children, Dan and Kelly. Brooks died six days after his 66th birthday in a car accident on 11 August 2003 near Forest Lake, Minnesota.