I was much too young to appreciate world events at the time of the Miracle on Ice game. When Team USA beat Team USSR 4-3 in the 1980 Olympic hockey semifinals, I had no idea that the event had even happened. Years later, though, I remember seeing a tape of the game. Even after knowing the result, that game was as magical as any event in sports.

The historical circumstances obviously added to the significance beyond sports of the American victory. Although I was far too young to know what was happening in 1980, from what I have read, and from my own memory what it was like to live in a world with the Soviet Union, I can appreciate some of the historical factors involved. The beginning of 1980 was not a very good time for American pride. The 1970s had been a disaster in many ways, beginning with the continuing war and failure in Vietnam, and continuing through the Watergate scandal and the economic crisis of the late 1970s. The Iran hostage crisis was ongoing. Cold War fears of the Soviet Union were as alive as ever. It really was a time when it was impossible even to pretend that things were going well. In that context the 1980 American Olympic hockey team became a national story, not just a sports story.

It is difficult to grasp just how shocking the result of the game really was at that time. For those who may not be familiar with the circumstances in 1980, I will give some explanation here of why there was no rational reason for the game even to be close. The Soviet team was considered the best in the world, having won at the last four Olympics, with no losses to the American team since 1960. In 1980, of course, Soviet players did not play in the NHL, so they were able to play in the Olympics, which made the Soviet team the equivalent of a professional all-star team. Indeed, just one year before the 1980 Winter Olympics, the Soviet team had defeated a team of NHL All-Stars in a three game series at Madison Square Garden in New York, dominating the last game of the series 6-0. This was consistent with the overall pattern of success of various Soviet teams against various North American teams in matchups during the 1970s. The United States, on the other hand, was a second-rate hockey power at that point. The NHL All-Stars were almost all Canadian, and indeed the NHL was in a certain sense a Canadian league with a lot of teams in American cities. Thus, even if NHL players could have played in the Olympics, it would have been the Canadian team, not the American one, that would have been considered a worthy opponent for the Soviets. However, of course NHL players did not play in the Olympics in those days, so the United States was forced to look to college or minor league players to make up the Olympic team. It was truly unthinkable that the Americans could win, and this was confirmed by the fact that the Soviet team routed the Americans 10-3 in a game in New York just a few days before the Olympics started. Given all that, the American victory over the Soviets in the Olympics was an event so improbable that Hollywood would never even dare to put out a movie with such an unrealistic premise, if it hadn't actually happened.

The almost fairy tale nature of the real life events could present difficulties in making a movie about them. It is all too easy for such a movie to fail utterly in conveying the nature of the real events, perhaps through attempts to "dress up" the story by adding significant subplots that did not exist in reality, or through an overplaying of the emotional impact of the events, leading to a movie that is too sugary and schmaltzy, and fails to let the story speak for itself. Sometimes, also, despite the best of intentions, it simply proves to be impossible to fit the real life story on the big screen in a compelling way. Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be given to the movie Miracle is that it did not ruin the true story.

In some ways there is little to say about this movie once one knows the story of the Miracle on Ice game and the events that led up to it, because the greatness of the movie is in the fact that it simply tells the story with very few embellishments, and that is a very good thing. The focus is on Herb Brooks and his task of choosing, preparing, and coaching the team. The character of Brooks is played brilliantly by Kurt Russell. (Tragically, Brooks himself was killed in a car accident in August.) It seems like almost everyone who knew the coach has commented on how completely Russell took on the character of Herb Brooks. The parts of players are also acted pretty well, but the only one that really stands out in the movie is goalie Jim Craig. Perhaps the weakest moments in the movie, though, come in the portrayal of the relationship between Brooks and his wife, which is touching in some spots but seems cliched and unnatural in others. However, these are certainly not fatal flaws.

In many sports movies the actual game scenes are awkward interludes in the story, with actors trying to imitate the actions of athletes whose skills they simply don't have. In Miracle real hockey players were used, and it pays off. Far from seeming awkward, the hockey scenes are the real highlights, as they need to be for this movie to work as it should. Hockey is probably as difficult to portray on film as any sport, and the hockey scenes here are done very well. There is real tension in the portrayal of the final minutes of the game as the American team tries to hold their lead against a Soviet onslaught. The original television commentary of Al Michaels is used, including his immortal "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" line at the end of the game.

Miracle is rated PG, and the USCCB rating is adults and adolescents. As one would expect in a sports movie, there are locker room scenes and there is the requisite bad language. However, I did not notice any objectionable content in the movie except the language, which is relatively mild as such things go, so this is probably one of the cleanest of recent non-animated movies.

Miracle isn't a timeless classic, and it inevitably exists in the shadow of the events it remembers. Twenty years from now I suspect there will still be some people who mention the Miracle on Ice, but I highly doubt anyone will be talking about this movie. However, it is a very enjoyable movie, and probably as good a movie as could be made about a story like this. Of course no movie can duplicate the real events, but this movie does its best, and its best is very, very good.