Miracle on Ice

No, this is not another thread about this season, but about the new movie coming out this weekend...

There is a good article on the movie at uscho.com



I didn't realize they used college hockey players as the actors! Should be interesting.

Just a few more days...

If you're in need of some pre-movie goosbumps, Sports Guy has a good column about the movie:

[sports.espn.go.com]

Author: Larry72

I was in Lake Placid in 1980. I saw all the Team USA games from the tie with Sweden to the Gold Medal winning game. I also saw many of the other 1980 Olympic hockey games during those two weeks. It was a hockey fan's fantasy come true.

I was working as a free-lance photographer so I couldn't cheer during the game. The games that I saw Russia in leading up to the US-USSR game were jokes. It was men against boys. The Russian players were some of the most talented hockey players I had ever seen - at any level. Team USA reminded me a lot of the better college teams (including Cornell) that I had seen over previous 14 years, but they were nowhere big enough or talented enough to take on the NHL+ caliber of the Russians. Little did I know.

Nothing in my hockey experience comes close to the US-USSR game. The Cornell 1970 NCAA championship game comes close, as do a couple of other CU games and a couple of Stanley Cup finals that I had the pleasure to attend. It was nearly impossible to keep a steady camera hand and staying focused with the nearly constant cheering for the last 10 minutes after Team USA scored the 4th goal. It was by-far the longest 10 minutes of my hockey career.

When it was over, I felt like the whole game had been a dream. I had to work the Canada game right after the US-Russia game so I had no idea what was going on outside the rink after the game. I left after the first period of the Canada game so I could go watch the tape-delay broadcast on ABC. There was absolute pandemonium in the streets of Lake Placid. It was like Mardi Gras and Carnivale in the snow. Watching the replay, I found myself gripping my chair during the last 10 minutes and screaming my lungs out. Even today, it's hard to believe that it really happened.

The other thing that was interesting was that we had very little idea of the effect the game had on the rest of the country. There was no Internet, no CNN, no ESPN, and even though I was in the media, it wasn't till the next day or so that we started getting reports of what had happened around the rest of the US. Lake Placid was at the time a really isolated little community without a lot of contact with the rest of the world.

So for what it's worth, I'll be at the movie this weekend. My son, CalgAri '07 will be my guest.

Larry Baum '72

[q]Nothing in my hockey experience comes close to the US-USSR game. The Cornell 1970 NCAA championship game comes close[/q]

Well, which is it?

I caught the sneak preview last weekend. The movie is outstanding. Being that i wasn't even born in 1980, my judgement that they captured the era quite well is, well, up for debate. The movie, however, really really doesn't suck. Everybody nailed their respective accents perfectly (Boston, Minnesota, etc). The hockey is very good, too.



Post Edited (02-05-04 17:04)

Ben Flickinger wrote:

[q]Nothing in my hockey experience comes close to the US-USSR game. The Cornell 1970 NCAA championship game comes close[/q]

Well, which is it?

It comes close to coming close, but isn't quite close enough.

I watched the game in the lounge of UHall 4. A good crowd had assembled.

Unfortunately, my memory is tainted by those boneheads at ABC who showed the live street scene in Placid with the crowd chanting "USA USA" and waving flages before announcing that they were showing the game on tape delay and they didn't want to spoil it for those who didn't know the score.

Of course, several people dashed into th lounge shouting "hey I heard we won" so I suppose it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

I did get the priveledge of seeing Jim Craig have his but kicked by UNH in the ECACs the previous year.

FWIW, I was a high school senior on a visit to Cornell when I watched the US-USSR game with a bunch of guys in a TV lounge on North Campus. Talk about an impactful night -- phwew!

That was the first of many fun weekends to be had at Cornell. (It was also the last I spent at a TV lounge on North Campus.)

Rebroadcast of Miracle on Ice game with studio segments with Eruzione and Craig (hosted by John Buccigross).

and with the original broadcast by Al Michaels and much more importantly, color by Ken Dryden

Barely 5 years old at the time, the 1980 Olympics are the first sporting events I remember attending. Saw the opening ceremonies, luge, ski-jumping, and a preliminary hockey game in the 1932 rink between 2 European teams that I don't remember. We were back home by the time the medal round began.

I'm a little suspicious of the film being too Disnified. Some of my favorite anecdotes from this story involve a little off-color humor and language. (See the excellent HBO documentary "Do You Believe In Miracles?" that was made a couple years ago). Also, the story doesn't need any overdone Disney scholck to be emotional. After all, the story wasn't all violins & hugs. And what does this say about the Mouse's intentions now? After all, to promote crappy films like "Mighty Ducks" and "Angels in the Outfield," Disney bought or created real pro teams. (OK enough of my anti-Disney soapbox)

What I would love to see is a DVD presentation of the games in their entirety, similar to the 1972 Summit Series product: [www.technofile.com] The stuff that ESPN Classic shows isn't complete (they jump ahead in the action) and have many interview breaks. I had a decent quality copy of the complete USSR game that was lost during the 2001 ECAC Tournament trip to Lake Placid, and to replace it, I eBayed original ABC broadcast tapes of the USSR and Finland games, but the quality is poor and because of tape-delay games are interrupted for skiing and other events, since they had the audience. Anyway...so much material for a DVD! The MSG lowlights, interviews, celebrations! Maybe the new movie will prove that there would be interest.

Philip Fibiger '01 wrote:

and with the original broadcast by Al Michaels and much more importantly, color by Ken Dryden

With all due respect to God Dryden's hockey abilities, he's not very good as a colorman in that broadcast. However priceless it is that he commented that the US was playing back on their heels and relying too much on Craig just as Eruzione was flinging a certain wrister at 10:00 of the 3rd, he nearly stepped on the toes of one of the greatest sporting calls of all time by muttering "it's over" and "unbelievable" around Al Michaels's now famous line. He also fumbled quite a bit regarding his knowledge of international rules.

Can't beat those bright blue sweaters, though.

[q] Idid get the priveledge of seeing Jim Craig have his but kicked by UNH in the ECACs the previous year. [/q]

Sorry, Roy. Jim Craig did not get his butt kicked by UNH, but they were the only ones who didn't kick it that tournament. I believe BU lost to Dartmouth in the semis, but then Cornell kicked his butt in the consolation (7-4 as I recall).

I missed the Olympic game, but my recollection was sitting in Uris Hall waiting for a movie to start. Some guy walked to the front of the lecture hall and wrote:

USA 4
USSR 3
on the blackboard. The place went absolutely nuts.

More frustrating to me was that my parents refused to give me any money to go up to Lake Placid for the games, then finding out that several of my fraternity brothers had 7th row seats for the gold medal game. It still bugs me.

JH

Rich H '96 wrote:


I'm a little suspicious of the film being too Disnified... Also, the story doesn't need any overdone Disney scholck to be emotional.

Agreed. I was a little worried as well. However, having seen Miracle last weekend, I have 3 word for everyone:

GO SEE IT!

Not only was it not Eisnerized, I felt they did 2 potentially difficult things very well. First, they did a nice job of making Brooks look hard-nosed and driven without making him come off as an asshole. Second, they did a great job building suspense and excitment even though you know how it is gonna end.

Oh, also, while I think of did, make sure to stay through the credits. They do a nice little "where are they now" bit. Take notice of the hockey themed names for all the financial services consulting firms.

Jeff Hopkins '82 wrote:
More frustrating to me was that my parents refused to give me any money to go up to Lake Placid for the games, then finding out that several of my fraternity brothers had 7th row seats for the gold medal game. It still bugs me.

Nitpick: it wasn't the gold medal game, it was just the last game of a round-robin medal round. The Finns didn't end up with the silver or any other medal.

Jeff Hopkins '82 wrote:

More frustrating to me was that my parents refused to give me any money to go up to Lake Placid for the games, then finding out that several of my fraternity brothers had 7th row seats for the gold medal game. It still bugs me.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Just put 'em in a crummy residential care facility when the time comes....and make sure they know why.

Any one care to compare it to the TV movie from '81 starring Karl Malden, Andrew Stevens, Steve Guttenberg and others?

In that one, they made a point of showing Brooks telling Eruzione that as captain, it was his job to bear the brunt of Brooks' histrionics.

Also, they included Cornellian and super agent Art Kaminsky in the story.

I like how IMDB has Patrick O'Brien Demsey playing "Mike Cruzione."

It was the game in which the USA clinched the gold medal. My description stands

What I also remember my friends telling me was that nobody expected the US to be in contention, so tickets were easy to get on one or two days notice. But once we beat the Russians, the tickets all disappeared.

JH

Yet another article on the movie if you are interested...

[sportsillustrated.cnn.com]

I just got back from seeing it, and I'll be seeing it again tonight. It was... in a word... incredible.

In a few words, it was ... well, yeah. Incredible.

...yeah.

Quick question: When did "Atlanta" become a team? There was a comment in there about "Atlanta's trying to sign me [or draft me... whatever, Atlanta was trying to do something to him.]..." I have to believe that they didn't make a GROSS oversight and mean the Atlanta Thrashers -- was there another Atlanta team back in 79-80?

dss28 wrote:

Quick question: When did "Atlanta" become a team? There was a comment in there about "Atlanta's trying to sign me [or draft me... whatever, Atlanta was trying to do something to him.]..." I have to believe that they didn't make a GROSS oversight and mean the Atlanta Thrashers -- was there another Atlanta team back in 79-80?

In one of the few positive franchise relocations in NHL history, the Atlanta Flames moved to Calgary in 1980.

SI had a photo of Craig in a Flames uniform on a cover. I imagine you could find it on the website.

What I've always liked is Calgary uses the old Atlanta Flames "A" logo for their Assistant Captain patch.

JH

I saw this movie tonight too and it was truly incredible. The audience was clapping and cheering as if we were actually at the games. I made my non-hockey loving friends come and they agreed this was a great movie. It was nice to see the shots of Lake Placid--brought back memories of trips to the ECACs.

please don't tell me who won

I know everyone else has already said this, but that isn't going to stop me!....

Saw the movie today; it was even better than I thought it would be. They did a really good job setting the scene for the game (i.e. the political/social climate in the US and the world at the time). Very well done. As someone already mentioned, the crowd cheered after every goal and applauded at the end. It was cool....

I went to see it tonight too...not so much reaction from the crowd. There were probably 20 people in the whole theater...which was surprising to me because there were a ton of people buying tickets. Apparently everybody was going to see "the perfect score"....silly virginians.

[www.rottentomatoes.com]

I especially liked the football scene - I found that really moving.

How did Finland not win a medal if they were in the gold medal game? The medal ceremony had the Russians and the Swedes in it.

my memory may be a little fuzzy, as i wasn't born yet, but here it goes...

as others pointed out, it was a medal round, not a gold medal game. the four teams in the medal round were comprised of the top two teams from each feeder group (i think they were designated by color). ussr and finland came from one group, and usa and sweden came from the other. the medal round was round-robin play, but the game already played between ussr and finland in the preliminary round and the game between usa and sweden in the prelimary round counted towards the standings. ussr beat finland and usa tied sweden earlier, so entering the medal round the ussr was 1-0-0, sweden and usa were 0-0-1, and finland was 0-1-0.

the united states beat the soviet union and finland to finish the medal round with a 2-0-1 record. ussr finished with (i believe) a 2-1-0 record. sweden finished with a 0-1-2 record and finland finished with a 0-2-1 record.

someone correct me if i got a detail wrong.

(edited: standings)



Post Edited (02-07-04 16:18)

I think you got all the details right. The funny thing is that if the US had lost to Finland, the Sweden-USSR game would have been for the gold. (And hence the Soviets would have won the gold anyway, the way things turned out.) Also, the USA-USSR game could have ended in a tie, in which case the Soviets would have won the gold with the win over Sweden. (So imagine if Tikanov had pulled Myshkin for the extra attacker, the Soviets had kept the puck in the zone, and scored to tie it.)

The above just shows the absolute idiocy of the round-robin medal round system that they were using. Fortunately it worked out .

It also seems like the end result was the same as if they had played a standard four team tourney, assuming you shuffle the order of the games. Semis- top team from one pool against 2nd place from the other pool. Thus USSR over Sweden and USA over Finland. Then USA over USSR in the final. Then Sweden beats Finland in a shootout... (I'm assuming the US was actually the top team in their pool. I think we were 5-0-1 but Sweden might have had the same record.)

Most of the Pep Band went to see 'Miracle' at a Ma and Pa joint in West Lebanon, NH on Friday night. It was a very enjoyable movie, I especially liked the Dryden cameo and the brief mention of beating Harvard

Slightly embarassing: Band members mumbling "sucks" whenever the players announced what schools they were from around the beginning of the film.

Not embarrassing at all.

They may have beaten the Russians, but four of them were still from arch-rival BU. Even when they were winning that was alwas in the back of my mind. I expect to respond the same way.

JH

[www.geocities.com]

The Swedes finshed first in the "Blue Group". They were also 4-0-1, we tied each other, and they had a better goal differential. So we would have played the Soviets in the semis anyway.

Sweden got the bronze over Finland because they tied us rather than losing to us, ending up with 2 points over 1.

Thnks for the clarification JTW. So my made up scenario doesn't work. Oh well. And I was making up the bit about the shootout, since they couldn't have played to a tie in my 3rd place game scenario.

Forgot to ask this in my initial post. Did anybody else notice they had the wrong Germany on the scoreboard? During the game against the West Germans, the scoreboard reads GDR, which is (was?) East Germany.

The guy doing the review on USCHO caught that, too. You're right. It is East Germany.

Yeah, I caught this too, but most people probably wouldn't notice unless familiar with the old abbreviations for split Germany BRD/DDR.

Either the producers/writers missed the difference or else they thought it helped the story a bit to have the good guys play another Soviet block team. As idiotic as that sounds, I wouldn't put it past Hollywood...

Keith K '93 wrote:

Either the producers/writers missed the difference or else they thought it helped the story a bit to have the good guys play another Soviet block team. As idiotic as that sounds, I wouldn't put it past Hollywood...

Nope. Just an oversight. The movie makes it very clear the game is against the West Germans.

My traveling companion and I saw Miracle yesterday in South Burlington. Yeah, it was a pretty damn good movie, and will likely hold the top movie of the year spot (in my mind) for a while to come. While it's true it succumbed to some of the cliched sports movie moments (the freezeframe ending, the training montages, the whole notion of the team that initially hates each other but comes together in the end), I found myself easily being able to look past all of that. The story was just that great. It moved me to tears, literally, and I can't tell you the last time a movie moved me to tears. So, yeah, everyone see this movie.

Just came back from seeing Miracle ...it was great!

Part of the hockey team where there as well. Unfortunately, though, there was no cheering from the crowd or any "sucks" being yelled out.

Go See It!!!! (if you haven't already)

USA! USA! USA! USA!

The old abbreviations for Germany as used by the Olympic Committee were "GDR" and "FRG" ... German Democratic Republic ... and Federal Republic of Germany. The Olympics often use their own abbreviations.

Also ... the team did, indeed, initially hate each other. No movie cliche there.

I think BDR/DDR "initialize" the same words as FRG/GDR except the latter are English while the former are German. Care to correct me Whelan?

Keith K '93 wrote:

I think BDR/DDR "initialize" the same words as FRG/GDR except the latter are English while the former are German. Care to correct me Whelan?

Correct, except it's BRD, not BDR:

BRD = Bundesrepublik Deutschland = Federal Republic of Germany = FRG
DDR = Deutsche Demokratische Republik = German Democratic Republic = GDR

The united Germany is still the BRD, BTW.

Reminds me of a little souvenir I picked up in April 1990, right after the wall opened up and before the two countries merged.

I was in Dresden, East Germany where I found a vehicle ID sticker that made a clever point. It had a large "D", the ID for West Germany. On the left side were a small "BR" and on the right side a small "DR". Basically it looked like:

BRDDR

a neat plug for unification.

JH

Jeff Hopkins '82 wrote:
Reminds me of a little souvenir I picked up in April 1990, right after the wall opened up and before the two countries merged.

I was in Dresden, East Germany where I found a vehicle ID sticker that made a clever point. It had a large "D", the ID for West Germany. On the left side were a small "BR" and on the right side a small "DR". Basically it looked like:

BRDDR

a neat plug for unification.

After unification, a lot of East Germans bought little white patches to cover up the first "D" and the "R" on their auto stickers and convert the "DDR" to a "D", rather than buying a new one.

If I was in East Germany before unification, I'd have put the tape over the car (trabi) and left the sticker.

JH

As a part of Sportscenter on Sunday, they had Eruzione review the film:

"I experienced it, and they really hit the nail on the head. I give it 4 stars."

That, to me, gives the movie even MORE credibility. They also showed the some footage from both the movie and the actual game -- everything was identical. From the puck position to the number of celebratory steps they took while the crowd was going wild. Identical.

This is definitely on my list of DVD must-haves. I just hope as a bonus feature, they include the actual game on the DVD.

dss28 wrote:
This is definitely on my list of DVD must-haves. I just hope as a bonus feature, they include the actual game on the DVD.

They could probably do it, too, since the same company has the rights to both. For once "synergy" could work in the public's favor.

Here's hoping!! :D

Uncle Ezra question about "Miracle on Ice" finally posted.
[ezra.cornell.edu]

I find the reply to be not totally complete. Arthur Kaminsky '68, the well-known sports agent, represented Brooks and the hockey team. My recollection is that he was a featured character in the Made-for-TV movie about the 1980 team that starred Karl Malden, and that he may have had a role in the coach and team selection process. I know for sure that he had dinner with Brooks and Dryden the night before the Soviet game and Brooks told him he thought they had a real chance against the Soviets. I think he served as a consultant on "Miracle" and is the co-author of one of the better books about the 1980 team, with John Powers of the Boston Globe ("One Goal: A Chronicle of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team".

Art Kaminsky quote from CSTV program on Herb Brooks:

”The night before the Soviet game, he [Brooks] and I and Ken Dryden, the great Canadiens goaltender, went for…dinner. For two hours, Herb grilled Ken for everything he knew about the Soviets because Ken had played them so often. And, as we left the restaurant, Ken said, ‘Herb, you think you have a chance?’ And Herb said, ‘I think we do.’”

So, although there were no Cornellians on the ice, two of them probably had an impact on the outcome of this game.