I was there

Rating: Null/10 (13 February 2004)

I am very proud of how this movie turned out. I was one of the three thousand extras used in the climactic U.S. vs U.S.S.R. scenes and let me tell you it was a gruelling shoot.
It was during the heat wave last June, so it was 35 degrees Celsius outside and really difficult to breathe. It was marginally cooler inside but not by much. It was amazing to watch how they managed to pull off the unique feat of finally getting hockey on film properly. The camera guys, the grips and the assistant director (Pete Whyte, amazing) were all on skates. The extras were screaming almost non-stop for 12 to 15 hours at a time. I had no voice left at the end of it.
But the coolest thing was this. After screaming "U.S.A." over and over for several hours, we had a moment of quiet while they were setting up a shot. Suddenly, slowly, a roar started to build, in wave after wave. We were looking around, trying to figure out what was going on, because the cameras weren't rolling. Finally, up in the rafters, we noticed that someone had hung a Canadian flag for everyone to see. The roar became deafening. Production assistants were falling over themselves trying to get up to the rafters to get it down because they were worried it would ruin the shot. Pete Whyte, in obvious awe, came over the P.A. system in a low voice and said, "That, was coool..."
He seemed to realize that we were running out of energy and as brilliant directors do, he came up with a way to get us up and running again. He had someone tug the flag down and toss it onto the ice. Then he did two things. He had a poster made that he set face down on top of the Russian net. When the cameras were rolling and he wanted us to react to the final U.S. goal and go berserk, he skated behind the Russian goal and flipped the sign up. It said, "Canada Kicks Ass." He then picked up the Canadian flag and skated up and down the ice, holding onto two corners of it and let it fly over his head.
It was a beautiful thing. So, say what you want about the country politics involved in the script of the film, but in fact it is Canadian pride that shines in every frame.