Miracle movie brings 1980 Olympic hockey to life

Originally published on IIHF.com in 2003

By Lucas Aykroyd

It’s the afternoon of June 5, 2003. A heat wave grips Vancouver, Canada. This is a long way from the cold, crisp, intense atmosphere at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics, where the USA achieved its 4-3 “Miracle on Ice” victory over the favored Soviet Union.

But at the PNE Agrodome, near the Pacific Coliseum where the Vancouver Canucks used to play, a recreation of one of the IIHF’s greatest hockey tournaments is underway. Walk into the old 3,260-seat arena and the smell of fresh paint greets you. The interior has received the 1980 red-and-blue color scheme, with Olympic logos everywhere plus merchandise booths and national flags high above the stands. Fans pack the seats, and banners exhort: “Jim Craig–The Puck Stops Here” and “America: The Best in Hockey.”

Even more striking is the scene on the ice, where today hockey players in Czechoslovakian jerseys featuring names like Stastny, Novy and Frycer are reenacting a scene from a preliminary round game versus the USA. It all looks authentic, from the Czech goalie’s puffy chest protector to the bushy haircuts on Team USA.

The reason for this recreation, of course, is the forthcoming movie “Miracle” from Walt Disney Pictures, which will hit theaters in early 2004. Mostly shot in Vancouver from March through early July, it also includes exterior mockups of Lake Placid filmed north in Rossland. Starring Kurt Russell (“Tango & Cash,” “Stargate”) as USA coach Herb Brooks and Noah Emmerich (“The Truman Show”) as general manager Craig Patrick, the film traces the entire journey of the college kids who came together to stage this improbable upset.

Yes, the entire journey. You want insight into the American team-building process? Or snapshots from the 7-2 USA win over Romania? How about the 10-3 walloping the Soviets inflicted on the Americans in pre-tournament play at Madison Square Garden? It’s all here, down to the minutest detail.

Perhaps the best evidence of this film’s commitment to authenticity is the painstaking effort that went into its casting process.

“The philosophy going into this was that I wanted to hire hockey players and teach them how to act, as opposed to teaching actors how to play hockey,” says director Gavin O’Connor, who consulted with Team USA members like Mike Eruzione and Jack O’Callahan.

Mark Ellis of ReelSports Solutions, a company that specializes in staging sports scenes in movies, elaborates on this unprecedented approach: “We went out to six different cities: Boston, Minnesota, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, and Chicago. We did auditions and casting calls. If you passed the tryouts and could skate, then you had a chance to read in front of the director. We saw thousands of kids for 16 roles on Team USA.”

Meanwhile, Kurt Russell spent three months working on his skating to ensure he would do justice to his on-ice portrayal of Herb Brooks. Russell was fitted for a prosthetic nose to increase his resemblance to Brooks, and he spent time speaking with Brooks and watching videos to capture the coach’s mannerisms. The role may take on an added level of poignancy in the wake of Brooks’ tragic August 11 death in a car accident.

But it wasn’t only Team USA that received such close attention to detail.

“When we got up here to Vancouver, we did another casting call to get players to portray the European opponents,” says Ellis. “We interviewed over 1500 people in two days, and we went through a four-day tryout period, where we made cuts every 30 minutes. By the end, we had our top 65 players from this area. Finally, we started dividing them into the proper teams. Then we went through a six-week training camp, where we’d practice with the Soviets Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and then on Tuesday and Thursday we’d meet with the Czechs and Swedes. On Saturday we’d meet with the others. So for six weeks, we’d have our opponents trying to learn the choreographed plays, studying film, doing research, trying to make this as authentic as possible.”

One of the principal hockey advisors on the film is Ryan Walter, a Stanley Cup champion with the 1986 Montreal Canadiens and Team Canada member at three senior IIHF World Championships (1979, 1981, 1982). At first, Walter thought this would just take a couple of days per week, but his involvement escalated to the point where he was invited to portray the referee in the climactic USA-Soviet game.

“This is going to be the best hockey movie ever,” Walter states. “I think the hockey world is going to love the movie.” He points out that several former pros snagged on-ice roles, including 1990 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Bill Ranford, who portrays Jim Craig, Sasha Lakovic, Todd Harkins, and others from the minor league and junior ranks.

Walter has been impressed with Vancouver lawyer Roger Watts, who portrays Russian goaltending legend Vladislav Tretiak: “Roger has given up his practice for a while to be Tretiak. He apparently became a goaltender because he loved Tretiak so much. And now he gets to play him!”

The hockey advisors watched hours of original footage from the 1980 Olympics plus the HBO documentary “Do You Believe in Miracles?” to capture the little nuances in the big games. “It’s one of our goals to make sure that the plays we develop for the Russian game have a Russian feel,” says Walter. “So it’s a lot less north-and-south, and a lot more east-and-west, a lot more regroup, the European flavor back then.” One highlight is an exact recreation of the last two minutes of the USA-Soviet game.

O’Connor insists he didn’t want to make a “hockey movie,” just as he didn’t want to overemphasize the Cold War tensions that plagued the world in 1980: “I wanted it to be a character study of the man Herb Brooks, who in a way put his family on the shelf to chase his dream.” But like the rest of his creative team, he also wants the original Team USA members to walk out of the theater saying: “They got it right.”

If “Miracle” can achieve that lofty goal, that’ll be a cinematic miracle in itself.