TWENTY-FIFTH anniversaries are supposed to be celebrated with silver. But for all the fans in or out of Lake Placid, N.Y., who chanted "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" on Feb. 22, 1980, the United States Olympic hockey team's 4-3 upset of the Soviet Union that evening will always be the golden moment that preceded the gold-medal victory over Finland two days later.

Ever since, the red-white-and-blue story has been told and retold. It was recently made into a movie: how Coach Herb Brooks, who died in a one-car accident in 2003, molded a team of mostly Minnesota and Massachusetts collegians into a team that inspired the broadcaster Al Michaels's glorious question: "Do you believe in miracles?"

At the time, nearly a decade before the Soviet Union's collapse, the Soviet side of that Winter Olympic story remained concealed under the red helmets and the red-and-white uniforms of what was generally considered the world's top hockey team. Yes, a team better than any of the N.H.L.'s best.

But now, thanks to Wayne Coffey's "The Boys of Winter" (Crown), a sweet and searching recollection of Brooks and his improbable team, along with an almost shift-by-shift analysis of that game, the Soviets' reaction is finally on record.