It’s hard to believe, but before 1980 no NHL player had ever won an Olympic gold medal and a Stanley Cup in the same year.

Ken Morrow changed all of that in February and May 1980. In February 1980, the 23-year-old Morrow was a regular defenseman with the U.S. Olympic Team and was a 1976 fourth-round pick of the New York Islanders. In those days, fourth-round picks were not counted upon to even make the roster of NHL teams. When selected in the draft, Morrow, a Flint, Michigan native, had completed the first of four years playing college hockey with Bowling Green University in Ohio.

There was little hint during his college career that Morrow would either make an Olympic team or the Islanders, even though he was an NCAA West First Team All-American in 1978 for scoring eight goals and 26 points in 39 games. In his senior campaign of 1978-79, Morrow was named the Central Collegiate Hockey Association Player of the Year with 15 goals and 52 points in 45 contests. The breakout earned Morrow a try-out for the U.S. Olympic team. He had already been a member of the 1978 and 1979 U.S. National teams.

Morrow made Herb Brooks' squad and was part of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" story, the oft-repeated tale of how a bunch of college kids knocked off the Soviets to win a gold medal. Of course, there is far more to the story. Morrow’s team actually had to defeat Finland to clinch the gold.

Morrow not only played for a team that won a gold medal, but immediately after the triumph at Lake Placid he jumped to the NHL and suddenly was part of a franchise on the cusp of winning four straight Stanley Cups, the New York Islanders.

“It was quite a roll,” Morrow recalled. “I had a real good year leading up to the Olympics. We won a couple of pre-Olympics tournaments and then going into the Olympics and winning a gold medal and then right to the Islanders and five straight finals.”

The stretch was so impressive that people started to view Morrow as sort of a good luck charm that they needed to be around.

“Yeah, people were calling me up, asking me if I would bet horses with them," Morrow laughed. "I guess they felt I had a lucky streak going and I felt the same way.”

But the on-ice streak didn’t extent to the ponies or anywhere else.

“The funny thing is, I am a terrible gambler," Morrow said. "I lose money every time I go to Atlantic City, and I have gone to horse races a few times and have come out a loser, so it hasn’t carried over to those aspects.”

No one was asking Morrow to roll dice for them at the casino, but when coaches asked Morrow to perform, he stepped up and was a major contributor. That ability to perform allowed the notoriously strict Brooks to overlook one of his rules in 1980. Brooks allowed Morrow to keep his facial hair.

Morrow was a major contributor because he was big, smart, tough and knew how to play his position.

Morrow found the Olympic experience totally different from his college days at Bowling Green. This was a two-week tournament that for many would define their hockey careers. In those days, very few college players, few Americans and only a handful of Europeans skated regularly in the NHL. The so-called Eastern Bloc countries were playing NHL and WHA All-Star teams in various tournaments throughout the 1970s, but for many, this was playing the big room instead of the lounge.

“It was a different experience than anything you prepare yourself for. Normally, you gear up for a whole season of eight months of hockey,” Morrow said. “With that, everything led up to just a two-week period of hockey. That was what was tough about the Olympics. You have to gear yourself to peak at those two weeks and there are so many things that can happen to throw you off kilter as far as injuries, illness, whatever, if your body is not peaking at the right time.

“That’s what makes it hard on the players and coaches, doing the right things during the season to make sure everybody has hit that peak during February.”

The U.S. team hit that peak and won the tournament. But for Morrow, there was no time to celebrate. The Islanders had been struggling without injured defensemen Denis Potvin and needed a quick boost to turn around a season that had not been as productive as expected. Morrow was in the Islanders' lineup within a week.

“It was kind of good that I didn’t have time to really sit back and think about what had happened,” he recalled. “I got a couple days rest and then got on a flight to Long Island and was practicing about five days later. I played my first game a week after I won the gold medal. Sometimes its good not having the time to think. I might have gone crazy.”

Morrow quickly became a playoff hero. He scored an overtime goal against Los Angeles – his only playoff tally – in the opening round of the 1980 playoffs that gave the Islanders a 2-1 series lead in the best-of-five matchup. The underdog Kings had the Islanders on their heels to that point.

“It was a typical Ken Morrow goal,” he laughed. “I just got on the ice and shot the puck about 10 feet wide, it hit a skate and went behind the goalie. All of a sudden we were up two to one on L.A. and went on to win the next game, 6-0. Up to that point they had us on the ropes. In that game in particular they had us down 3-1 going into the third and we came back to win in overtime (4-3).”

Morrow would score two other overtime goals in his career, one the game-winner in what is now considered to be a classic series with the New York Rangers in 1984. Morrow slipped the puck past goaltender Glen Hanlon in the fifth and final game of the Patrick Division Semifinals to eliminate the cross-town rivals in five games. The goal came after Don Maloney had tied it for the Blueshirts in the final minute of the third period.

“I was fortunate. I didn’t score many goals, but I had three overtime goals and it’s always fun because you get the spotlight for three days,” he said of his heroics.

Morrow thinks he was just in the right place at the right time. He made the U.S. Olympic Team and waited nearly four years to join the Islanders after being drafted.

“I had a great streak and I was real happy about it. I came to an Islanders team that was building and built itself up through the '70s and was just reaching its peak and continued on for a number of years. I was just fortunate enough to be a part of it,” he said.

Morrow was more than lucky on ice, he was a key component in the 1980 U.S. win and a regular contributor to the Islanders’ four Cup wins between May 1980 and May 1983. But he also learned something in those days too. He decided to stay away from racetracks.

“I lost too much money,” he laughed.

When the International Olympic Committee, the NHL and the NHLPA agreed to allow participation of NHL players in the Olympics beginning in 1998, it was only a matter of time before someone would match Morrow’s achievement. In 2002, Brendan Shanahan and Steve Yzerman would become the second and third players to accomplish the feat. Shanahan and Yzerman were part of Canada’s gold medal team in Salt Lake City and later helped lead the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup.

But Morrow has a personal record that may never be broken. A gold medal and four straight Stanley Cups. He was on quite a roll between February 1980 and May 1983.