Movies about hockey are very hard to make, unless they’re comedies like the Mighty Ducks ( which some might say were really tragedies ). Miracle is not a comedy, it’s not a tragedy, it’s not a dramedy. It’s the story of how an unconventional coach named Herb Brooks led the US Olympic Hockey Team to a 4-3 upset win over the Soviet team in the dark days of the Cold War and the endless nightmare that was the Carter Administration.

I’d heard of this legendary victory, even as sports novice over the years, but I never heard about the man behind the scenes, Herb Brooks. If he was anything like the movie, he was my kind of overacheiver. Someone who had strong instincts, who knew when to trust them even when; even everyone else told him otherwise. He changed the way the US played hockey and the Russians never saw it coming. Neither did the 26 hockey players who fought for 7 grueling months to prove that they should be one of the 20 going to Lake Placid in 1980.

In order to give it a more realistic feel, the movie was shot with natural lighting and they kept the pretty boys to a minimum. Another coup, instead of using lesser known actors and teaching them to play hockey, the got really good hockey players and let them roll in front of the camera. I think we’re going to see a few of them in other movies.

I’m a huge Kurt Russell fan. Ever since Escape from New York, he’s the one guy in Hollywood who deserves the insane paychecks and the attention ( and Goldie Hawn ). Yep, he’s that good but he’s even better here.

Some might charge that the movie is too long. It’s 2 hours and 15 minutes. To those that complain, I say, go to the bathroom before the movie and don’t drink the 198 ounce soda before the end of the trailers. The subject and the story deserve a slightly longer than average running time.

One down note about this project, the real Herb Brooks died in August 2003, in a car accident. He never saw a single frame of Miracle.

As the tagline says, He never saw it. He lived it.