Miracle

Factual error: In the movie, it shows Brooks only held tryouts for a single day in Colorado Springs. In reality, he created four teams by region, 64 players total, and they played scrimmages and a tournament. The first 26 players were then selected.

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.

Factual error: A brief shot of the World Trade Center at night is shown right before the team plays the Russians in NY, which is just days before the 1980 Olympics. This shot includes buildings located in front of the Twin Towers which were not completed until well after 1980. This complex of four buildings are known as the 'World Financial Center' and are well known for their oddly shaped rooftops. In 1988 the 'World Financial Center', the Winter Garden and 'World Financial Center Plaza' officially opened.

Factual error: Boris Mikhailov plays as a center in the movie, while in reality he was actually a right wing. Vladimir Petrov was the center.

Mike. M

Factual error: In the movie, the players on the bench rushed onto the ice to celebrate the victory about 4-5 seconds after the final horn sounded. In the actual game, everyone had left the bench with 1-1.5 seconds still left to play in the game.

Matty Blast

Factual error: In the movie, Valeri Kharlamov is portrayed as a left winger with a right handed shot, in reality, Kharlamov was a right winger with a left handed shot. Additionally, his name is misspelled as "Charlamov" on the back of his uniform.

Factual error: The exhibition game at Madison Square Garden took place at 2:00pm, not at night as the outside shot of the arena depicts.

Matty Blast

Factual error: In the movie, just before Mike Eruzione scored the game-winning goal, one of his teammates shouted "Rizzo," and passed the puck to him. That was not the case in the actual game. The puck inadvertently bounced over to where he was; no one intentionally passed it to him.

Matty Blast

Factual error: In the actual games, the referees had their names on the backs of their jerseys (none of the refs in the movie did).

Matty Blast

Factual error: Contrary to what the movie shows, goaltender Jim Craig actually did take the psychology test - the next day after he told the coach why he thought he wasn't necessary.

Matty Blast

Factual error: Immediately after the victory against the Soviets, coach Herb Brooks did indeed leave the bench and go back through the tunnel. However, it wasn't to find a secluded place to rejoice. He simply had to go to the restroom.

Matty Blast

Factual error: In the actual Olympic games, the ice looked nowhere near as immaculate as it did in the movie. The movie's ice is pure white, with vibrantly-colored blue lines, red lines, etc. Anyone who has seen the actual footage of the game knows that the ice surface is blotchy, very much like a pond.

Matty Blast

Factual error: The skates are all modern - they are all black plastic, no metal.

Factual error: Even though Jack O'Callahan was injured and couldn't play until the medal round, he still suited up for each game and skated during warm-ups. In the movie, he's wearing a suit and tie while on the bench.

Matty Blast

Factual error: The opening scene is set at USA Hockey headquarters, complete with logo out front and a receptionist answering the phone as "USA Hockey." However, the governing body now known as USA Hockey was then known as AHAUS (Amateur Hockey Association of the United States). AHAUS didn't become USA Hockey until 1989.

rockytopreb

Factual error: The time clock digits on the scoreboard were not made up of individual round lights, as shown in the movie. They were made of illuminated bars, similar to the LED displays on alarm clocks.

Matty Blast

Factual error: The arena in the movie is way too small. The Olympic Ice Arena in Lake Placid had a capacity of about ten thousand, with an entire second level. The only "second level" the arena in the movie has is the small balcony at the end of the ice.

Matty Blast

Factual error: Al Michaels never referred to the Harrington/Schneider/Pavelich line as the "Conehead" line when announcing the game on ABC.

Matty Blast

Factual error: In the movie, after the USSR's first goal, the announcer *correctly* announces that the goal was scored by Krutov, who deflected the puck in. In the actual game, she incorrectly announced that it was the player who made the initial slap-shot. (Later in the game, Al Michaels pointed out the correction while doing the play-by-play.).

Matty Blast

Factual error: In one game the camera pans to Herb and behind him we can see a man wearing an Under Armor hat. Under Armor didn't come out until 1996.

More mistakes in Miracle

Herb Brooks: Red line, back. Blue line, back. Far blue line, back. Far red line, back. And you have 45 seconds to do it. Get used to this drill. You'll be doing it *a lot*. Why? Because the legs feed the wolf, gentlemen. I can't promise you we'll be the best team at Lake Placid next February. But we will be the best conditioned. That I can promise you.

More quotes from Miracle

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.

Matty Blast

More trivia for Miracle

Question: Why didn't Finland's hockey team medal in the 1980 games if they played the U.S. for the gold?

Krista

Chosen answer: It appears that the medal round was just a continuation of the round robin tournament. When the US deafeated Finland, it cliched the best record in the tournament. The Soviet Union had the second best record, and Sweden the third best.

Timothy Cheseborough

More questions & answers from Miracle

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.