"Doc" Nagobads, the team physician for University of Minnesota and U.S. national hockey teams — including the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" group that won the gold medal in Lake Placid — has died at age 101.
Doc Nagobads, team physician for Herb Brooks' 'Miracle On Ice' Olympic team, dies at 101
Nagobads was also a team doctor for the North Stars and Fighting Saints, and stood alongside Herb Brooks on the bench during the "Miracle On Ice" run at Lake Placid.
April 1, 2023 at 3:22AM
Nagobads spent 34 years as Gophers team doctor and also worked with five Olympic teams and 25 other U.S. international teams. He was also a team doctor for the North Stars and Fighting Saints, and served a stint as chief medical officer for USA Hockey, which announced his death Friday.
He was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2010.
Visvaldis George Nagobads was born on Nov. 18, 1921, in Riga, Latvia, and got his medical degree at the University of Tübingen in Germany before working with an international refugee group in France. He and his wife, Velta, immigrated to Minnesota in 1951 and started work with the University Health Service in 1956.
In 1958, then-Gophers hockey coach John Mariucci asked Nagobads to be the team's doctor and also got him involved with national and Olympic teams, which had strong Minnesota connections.
The United States, coached by Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet Union 4-3 on Feb. 22, 1980, at Lake Placid, N.Y., then clinched the gold medal two days later with a 4-2 victory over Finland. Twelve of the 20 players on the "Miracle on Ice" team were Minnesotans. Nagobads was on the bench beside Brooks, keeping a stopwatch on line shifts in addition to his doctor duties.
Minnesota shot nearly 60% during a 20-8 start to erase a fresh loss to Nebraska, but guard/forward Taylor Woodson suffered a knee injury early in the game.
