The actor who plays Buzz Schneider is Billy Schneider, Buzz's real son.
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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.
Mistakes
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)? See more...
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The actor who plays Buzz Schneider is Billy Schneider, Buzz's real son.
At the very end of the movie, while the narrator is talking about the events that followed the victory over the Soviet Union, the captain of the US team is shown standing on the top platform on the ice during the medal ceremony. Suddenly he motions to his teammates to come up and join him on the platform, and they all crowd together and are just barely able to fit. In light of this emotional moment for team USA, it was decided that at all Olympic Hockey medal ceremonies going forward, instead of having platforms big enough for just the captain, they would have platforms long enough so that the whole team can stand on each one. It has been this way ever since.
Just after time expires, Coach Brooks extends his hand to shake hands with Assistant Coach Patrick. Patrick gives him a big bear-hug instead. Kurt Russel (Brooks) didn't know he was going to do that; the directors wanted a genuine reaction.
"Pong" games have four modes of play: Practice, Squash, Tennis, and Hockey. The opening sequence contained a brief segment of a TV ad for Pong. Anyone want to guess which of the four was being demonstrated?
Members of the 1980 US Olympic hockey team paid a visit during filming, and described the experience as if being in a "time warp." They were moved by the sight of all the jerseys and amazed at the resemblance the actors had to their 1980 selves. In fact, throughout filming the actors were instructed to call each other by their movie name (whether the camera was rolling or not), so (for example), one actor would say, "Hey O.C.." and both the real Jack O'Callahan and the actor playing him would respond simultaneously.
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.
If you listen very carefully to the part where Al MIchaels says, "Do you believe in miracles? YES...", you'll notice that it's from the original broadcast of the game in 1980. All other play-by-play was re-done by Michaels as the movie was produced. The reason they used the original 1980 broadcast for just that specific moment is that Michaels had a difficult time recreating the emotion and excitement he felt when shouting it as it really happened.
At the Christmas party we see that one of the players was given a toy helmet with a flashlight on it. The reason for that particular gag gift was that in one of the pre-Olympic games he accidentally bashed into another US player on the ice.
The movie mentions the Challenge Cup, where the Soviet national team defeated the NHL all-stars 6-0. Believe it or not, it was the Soviet backup goaltender (Vladimir Myshkin) who played in that game. No wonder coach Tikanov had no reservations about replacing starting goaltender Vladislav Tretjak with Myshkin after the first period vs. team USA.
The reason we see very little footage of the game against Czechoslovakia is that several fistfights broke out during filming (they were hockey players, after all).
During the "again" scene where Herb Brooks repeatedly blows his whistle and the players skate back and forth, there was no acting involved. The scene took twelve hours each day for three days to shoot and the director wanted everything to be real so when the players are keeling over and out of breath, they really were out of breath.
If the US team would have only tied Finland in its gold-medal-winning game, it would have needed the Soviet victory over Sweden (later that same day) to still clinch the gold. When announcing the US-Finland game and explaining this scenario, Al Michaels called it "the ultimate irony," since the Americans would then be cheering the Soviets on to victory.
The first scene that the hockey players shot with Kurt Russell was outside the bus, where four of the players tried to get Coach Brooks (Russell) to send Tim Harrer home. The director thought that since this would be the first time the boys interacted with Russell, there would be some genuine looks of awe and/or intimidation.
During the final minutes of the big game, there is one shot in the movie where we see four US players skating backward into their own zone in an almost perfectly straight line. The exact same thing happened in the actual game. Bringing back four defenders forced the attacking USSR player to make a long shot from behind the blue line that Craig had no problem saving.
At the Christmas party, backup goaltender Steve Janaszak has a towel around his neck (he always wore one when in uniform & on the bench), even though everyone is in street clothes. This decision was made probably to distinguish him from Ralph Cox, who had a similar handlebar moustache.
The actors were often anxious to play real hockey, so the producers let them play competitively for about ten minutes every day. The cameras recorded these pickup games, and footage of them was used in parts of the movie.
To boost the team's confidence, Brooks often made fun of Soviet captain Boris Mikhailov, saying that he looked like comedian Stan Laurel.
When Jim Craig said to Coach Brooks, "Nobody understands your stupid sayings," he was referring to a notebook that the players kept, where they listed all of the unique things Brooks said. They called his sayings "Brooksisms." Some examples: "This isn't weaving for weaving's sake."; "You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." and, "You're playing worse every day, and today you're playing like it's next month."
The arena used for the Norway game and the arena used for the Olympics were the same. The Norway game's scenes were shot first, then the arena's interior was given a brilliant paint job, then the rest of the movie was shot.
The man with the hat who puts the American flag on Craig is the film's director.
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