Practicality wins out. Pavelich puts Olympic medal up for sale.

The U.S. ice hockey team celebrates it's gold medal victory over Finland, 4-2, Sunday, February 24, 1980 at Lake Placid, N.Y.  (AP Photo)

If you won an Olympic medal in one of the most famous moments in American sports history, would you keep it and pass it on to your heirs, or sell it?

Mark Pavelich, the Eveleth native who won gold with the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” U.S. Olympic hockey team, has decided to sell his. Bidding will open later this month.

Sometimes, you have to let go and move on.

“The only thing is you’re limited to what you can do with these things,” he tells Yahoo sports today. “You keep it in a vault in the bank somewhere and you take it out once in a while and you look at it and you put it back in. You can’t put them in a house because it could burn or get stolen and it’s just gone and useless. It’s just an impractical thing.”

Which makes sense from a practical point of view.

But… it’s this:

Heritage auctions

Pavelich says he’s going to keep the mementos of his NHL days.

“You can’t say that you never did win a medal just because you don’t have it anymore. You always can say that you got it,” he said.

Pavelich now lives in Lutsen. His wife died in 2012. He has a daughter from a previous marriage.