Rousing

Rating: 9/10 (14 February 2004)

I've never been a fan of hockey. But I always have been a fan of the Olympics, even the winter Olympics and would watch the hockey events there. So I was a living spectator, on TV of course, of the US Men's Hockey team's miracle run to the gold.
"Miracle" gave me some new surprises about what it took for Herb Brooks (masterfully played by Kurt Russell) to prepare the team. The first surprise comes with the simple passage of time. I was only 23 years old at the time of the Lake Placid Olympics so I wouldn't remark on the young age of the players. But now, wow!, average age of only 21.
I figured the team had to work very, very hard to prepare and the film shows the rigors of Brook's training, both physically and mentally but I had no idea he had only seven months to mold them into a team.
Sports shows always show last second winning shots of events, but I discovered how important a couple of last second tieing shots were to keep the Dream alive.
"Miracle" shows as its denouement, as expected, plenty of action from the game against the Soviet Union. The movie takes you right on the ice and you experience the battlefield ballet that is hockey. Really intense and exhilarating.
My only quibble is it treats the Gold Medal game against Finland as an afterthought. As any sports fan knows, sentimentality rarely meets reality. I think for the US team to come back after such an emotional charge to win again is the grand finale of amazing feats they performed.