MINNEAPOLIS — "I can still hear the arena, I felt like it was vibrating."
Kelly Brooks-Paradise, daughter of Herb Brooks and only eight-years-old on that day in Lake Placid, remembers every detail of the 1980 Olympic Hockey Gold Medal game and the hours after.
The late Brooks isn't around anymore, but when Paradise is around his former players, it always evokes those memories for her.
"It's kind of hard, but exciting," she said.
Thursday afternoon at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, a group of those players and their families reunited at Terminal 2, ahead of a team reunion trip to Las Vegas.
"It's an amazing thing that we still get a chance to get together like this and are still such close friends," John Harrington said. "We get a chance to laugh about a lot of things but you get to check in with everybody to see how everybody is doing in their life too."
"We never dreamed it would resonate this long," Buzz Schneider said of their win over the USSR.
The Vegas Golden Knights will host the team February 21 and 22, concluding with a ceremony before their game against the Florida Panthers to honor the 40th anniversary of the team's victory over the Soviet Union.
Multiple members of the team also mentioned they could meet President Donald Trump at a private event in Las Vegas. The team met President Jimmy Carter in 1980 after taking gold.