Miracle

I absolutely loved this movie. Granted I am a hockey fanatic, but this is just a fantastic sports film. Miracle tells the story of Herb Brooks the coach of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team. Historically this was a team of college and minor league players who were trained in 6 months to play a new system of hockey specifically geared towards beating the dominant Soviet hockey team. The Americans did beat the Russians in the metal round and went on the beat Sweden for the gold metal.

This movie tells two stories, and neither of them is about hockey, so if you do not know much about hockey do not feel left out. The first story is about Herb Brooks, a University of Minnesota coach willing to take on the job of coaching the Olympic team when many others have turned it down as a lost cause. His main drive is to beat the Russians at their own game by building a team of not the best players, but of role players specifically trained and superbly conditioned to beat the Russian hockey team at their own aggressive game. As Brooks says ‘I’m not looking for the best players. I’m looking for the right ones.’ Along the way he must deal with alienating his wife Patty and there are some really poignant and non hockey related, scenes in this film.

The second story is about a group of young men who sign up to represent their country in a sport they love. It turns out to be a much rougher ride than they planned and they end up becoming a family, and a great hockey entity along the way. They begin polarized between the great players from two great college hockey traditions from the University of Minnesota and Boston University, ‘Our own private Cold War’ as the team doctor observes. But over time these players become the team that represents the United States of America, and not one particular school or region.

This is the role of Kurt Russell’s career, he has a great accent in this movie and an even better hairdo and wardrobe, and the jackets were horrible. It was a great idea to cast minor league players and college players as the team, it gives the hockey scenes much more realism.

The opening credits of the movie serve to set the tone of the times of the story. The Miracle on Ice was not about hockey, in a time when America was feeling vulnerable, having not beaten the Russians since the (1960s), seeing the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the gas shortages set Americans down. Though the US Olympic hockey team beating the Russians did not cure all of these evils, it was a moral victor during dark days of the Cold War. A team of NHL All-Stars had lost to the Russian Army team only 6 months before and things looked bleak for the Olympics. The Olympic team played the Russians only three days before the Olympics began and lost 10-3.

I loved all of the little touches, the lose chin straps the ugly coats, the shag haircuts, and the silly sweaters. I wondered a little about the guy on ice on crutches, but if they are that used to it maybe they can pull that off without falling on their butts.

What can I say about the hockey scenes themselves? I wish that hockey looked half this good on television. If they were then hockey would be the top sport in the US instead of ranking between tennis and horse racing. Of course there were probably cameras in the middle of the ice that the actors had to skate around so it is probably not viable. But the hockey scenes were well paced, had great angles, and did not let go of the tension. I had to remind myself as the game was going on that 1) This was a movie not a hockey game, and 2) The Americans were going to win, it was a historical fact.

The pacing of the movie is also good. If the goal was to beat the Russians, then winning over Finland for the gold is almost anticlimactic. They deal with this by mentioning but not showing the game, and then moving to one of the most memorable Olympics moments, the entire team crowding onto the podium to receive the gold metal and holding up their fingers as the number one team in the world. Brooks closes with a poignant statement, these days the Olympic teams are formed by ‘Dream Teams’ of professional players who practice for a few games before appearing in the Olympics. Since then we did not even medal in the 1998 Olympics and the won the silver in the 2002 Olympics. We have lost sight of the dream since we have had the dream teams.

Unfortunately Herb Brooks died in a car crash last year and never watched the film chronicling a seminal moment in sports history that he was instrumental in creating.