The real story is/was so good, that the movie's streamlining didn't help.

Rating: 5/10 (10 March 2004)

I am big fan of college & Olympic hockey -- it is so much more pure and meaningful than the 80 game clutch & grab seeding schedule before the Stanley Cup playoffs. I go to 10+ games a year and I applaud the raw love for the game that college players exhibit.
Over the last 5 years ABC/ESPN (owned by Disney or didn't you know) has spent $600Million on the television rights to NHL hockey. The effort has been a dismal failure for both sides. Ratings have fallen during that period (as players' salaries have skyrocketed) and hockey is now watched in as many homes as Arena Football. So, perhaps we can understand the motivation of Disney releasing this movie at the current time of year.
That being said, the story of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team is one of sports' greatest. For a more traditional, and a bit less melodramatic retelling, see HBO Productions, "Do You Believe in Miracles?". It does a very credible job of blending the USA hockey team (the players and their stories) with the "back story" of 1980 and America's malaise. It also points out some interesting tidbits such as the US-Russian game was NOT televised live, the final with Finland was just as important as the game with Russia, and even includes interviews with the Russian players to get THEIR points of view.
Miracle was a reasonable, workmanlike dramatic recreation of the events (and Kurt Russell was great as Herb Brooks) but it was way too "clean". If you don't know anything about hockey, it probably doesn't matter, but if you do, you'll be surprised that: 1) every face-off is at center ice 2) icing & off-sides do not occur. 3) pucks are always deflected by goalies and never smothered. 4) shots on goal always come from hard slap shots or one-timers and never through deflections, screens & rebounds. 5) (Except for once), penalties and power plays don't exist.
The real story is so dramatic that the movie didn't really add much to what happened.