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Quotes

Herb Brooks: When you pull on that jersey you represent yourself and your teammates. And the name on the front is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back.

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Trivia

The 3,000 extras used to sit in the stands and act as crowd noise did an excellent job of chanting "USA! USA!", especially since they were all Canadians. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

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Miracle (2004) - 50 mistakes

starring Kurt Russell (add more)

Genres: Drama, Family, History, Sport

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Factual error: When Coach Herb Brooks is seen walking through the Olympic Village, Italian athletes are seen walking by with their green Olympic team jackets on. It says "Italy" on the backs of their jacket, but countries use their OWN language when putting their names on their jackets. Italy always goes by "Italia" on their uniforms.

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Factual error: In the exhibition game against Norway, Jim Craig is shown in goal for the US. It was actually the backup goaltender, Steve Janaszak, who played in that game.

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Continuity: The fan who came out onto the ice and draped a flag around Jim Craig's shoulders (a cameo by the film's director, by the way) put it on upside-down. The camera cuts away, then cuts back, and it's right-side up.

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Factual error: Rob McClanahan never actually cheap-shotted Jack O'Callahan to cost his team the 1976 NCAA championship, as described in the movie. McClanahan was a senior in high school at the time. Furthermore, although O'Callahan did have some hatred toward McClanahan, they never had a fight at any of the practices of the 1980 Olympic team.

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Factual error: After the tie with Norway, Coach Brooks orders his entire team skate drills over and over again. Two of the players shown skating the drill, Buzz Schneider and Jim Craig, weren't on the ice on this occasion. Craig didn't play in the game, although Schneider did - he was ejected earlier and already dressed in street clothes when all that went down.

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Factual error: The Soviet Union had 9 shots on goal in the third period vs. team USA. In the movie's third period, the Soviets had 19 shots on goal.

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Factual error: When Craig Patrick is reading off the names of the 26 players, he only reads 24. Furthermore, the two names he misses are those of Mark Wells and Neil Broten.

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Deliberate "mistake": It wasn't Mike Eruzione shouting his own name that finally convinced coach Brooks to stop making the players do sprints. It was Mark Johnson, who smashed his stick against the glass in a fit of rage.

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Factual error: In every single hockey scene the rinks are small, NHL-size rinks. In reality, Olympic hockey is always played on the bigger "European-sized" rinks. (TV footage from the 1980 tournament confirms this) Even the game in Norway is played on a small rink.

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Factual error: The film was excellent throughout in duplicating the hockey equipment that the players used during the late 1970s and early 1980s - with one notable exception - the players are wearing CCM helmets from the late 1990's instead of the models worn in 1979/80.

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Factual error: Jack O'Callahan was missing a couple of front teeth during the games. He had no missing teeth in the movie.

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Continuity: There is a scene during the training camp in which we see Herb crossing off players names with a blue pen. We can see him crossing the same name off twice in different shots.

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Factual error: After Baker scores the last-minute tying goal against Sweden, we see the opening of one of the ABC television broadcasts of the Olympics as it appeared in 1980. The specific arrangement of the Olympic Fanfare music we hear, however, did not exist until a few years later. It's an arrangement by John Williams that was made for the 1984 Olympics. The crash cymbals and chimes that accompany the opening tympani notes give it away.

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Revealing: If you watch Herb's wife Patty drink her hot chocolate, it is very easy to see that the cup is empty.

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Factual error: The Finnish team's uniforms (in the gold medal-winning game vs. the USA) were not gray; they were white with blue trim.

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Factual error: In the movie, Ken Dryden says something like, "In Madison Square Garden this team played very tentative hockey, very much in awe of the Soviet team. Tonight, they're playing like they're not in awe of anybody." He actually said that during team USA's 7-3 rout of Czechoslovakia.

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Factual error: The movie shows that in the third period there was a Slashing penalty to 16 (Petrov) at 2:47, which gave rise to the game-tying power-play goal by Johnson. The Slashing penalty was actually to 9 (Krutov) at 6:47, four minutes later.

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Factual error: Equipment: mostly inaccurate. Locker room scenes show many shoulder pads from late 1980's/early 1990's (floating shoulder caps). Pants are modern, off the shelf CCM's. Goalie chest protectors are from later in the 1980's (at least). They should be the earlier type, such as a Cooper SB 95 and chest protector combination. Pre-Olympic gloves are modern (laughable) shiny vinyl, and the Olympic tournament gloves are simply current CCM pro gloves - right off the shelf, with a re-sewn cuff to make them look older. Also note that the finger wart colors are opposite the 1980 gloves - they should be top white, bottom red. As noted before, the helmets are modern. Opposing team gloves inaccurate/many spray painted early 1990's Cooper solid back roll gloves. In a scene from the Sweden game, there is player with gloves who's cuff-roll says "Koho," but the glove have CCM stripes. And Sweden's 1980 Jofa helmets were royal blue (standard Jofa colors), not navy blue.

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Other: Just before the second period against the USSR, we see a couple of shots of the benched Soviet starting goaltender Vladislav Tretiak. His hair is dry and combed, and there is no sign of perspiration, despite having just played the whole first period. After the game is over, we see a shot of the Soviet players watching the Americans celebrate. This time Tretiak's hair is wet and his face is sweaty. Shouldn't it be the other way around (i.e., hair is wet after playing one period, then dry after sitting on the bench for two periods)?

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Continuity: During the game against the Soviet Union, the US team ties up the score at 3-3. As Al Michaels comments on the tied score the crowd is panned and the scoreboard reads 4-3, which actually happens a few minutes later in the game. The digits are hard to read, but if you look closely enough, the mistake is detectable.

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