Dipping our toes one last time this month into the waters of the Olympics landing on the silver screen, Matt Lynn Digital takes us back to the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics with the Gavin O’Connor movie Miracle (2004). The story of the American men’s ice hockey team’s unlikely path to defeating the national team’s of the Soviet Union and Sweden in Lake Placid, New York for the gold medal is the story of Miracle.
The historical and movie story underpinning Miracle starts with the knowledge that the Soviet and Swedish teams were heavy favorites with Finland on the Olympic stage as legitimate contenders for medaling in the 1980 Olympics. The selection of Herb Brooks of the University of Minnesota of Minneapolis, Minnesota as coach and general manager with Craig Patrick of the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado as assistant coach and assistant general managers were the first, large decisions on that path. The two would select a team that weren’t necessarily the best hockey players. The movie tells the story of selecting players to make Brooks‘ vision of the best team. Kurt Russell and Noah Emmerich portrayed Brooks and Patrick, respectively.
Herb Brooks and Craig Patrick met each other the Olympic team tryouts in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The decision on players who would make the 1980 Olympic team bucked some trends that the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) had in mind, yet the vision of the coaches prevailed. USOC executive director Walter Bush, as portrayed by Sean McCann, agreed to take whatever heat may have come from that decision making. The preliminary play for the American team leading up to the Olympics was lopsided to the benefit of the teams that the ice hockey teams playing the team that went to Lake Placid for the United States.
Nathan West and Patrick O’Brien Demsey portrayed forwards Rob McClanahan and Mike Eruzione in the movie Miracle. The two were part of the players at the forefront of the self-sacrifice and discipline sought by Brooks and Patrick that contributed to the focus offered by the team that would lead announcer Al Michaels to famously ask and answer this way: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”
The story of Miracle rests in the drama of the background in assembling the team leading up to the Olympics, the adversity that forged an unlikely camaraderie in a collective pursuit, and the personal tales of sacrifice among those that ultimately succeeded at the highest Olympic level. The path for Jim Craig, as portrayed by Eddie Cahill, to goaltender for the Olympic team is a precise example of those dynamics within the movie Miracle.
The movie Miracle was well received in the United States, though the critical reception is had regarding Academy Awards or BAFTA Awards for Chariots of Fire (1981), which Matt Lynn Digital reviewed one week ago today. We look favorably on the film Miracle as directed by Gavin O’Connor, granting the movie 3.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.
Matt – Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Matt Lynn Digital 
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