Trailer
Plot summary
Herb Brooks coaches hockey at the University of Minnesota and wants to lead the American team at the 1980 Winter Olympics. He tells the Olympic Committee how he would beat the dominant Soviet team, which had won the previous four Olympic gold medals, and asks for a different practice schedule and a different approach. The committee is skeptical but hires him. At the tryouts in Colorado Springs he meets his assistant, Craig Patrick, and picks a preliminary roster of twenty-six players, ignoring what senior officials prefer. Walter Bush, the executive director, believes Brooks has the team's interests at heart and agrees to take the criticism. At the first practice, forward Rob McClanahan and defenseman Jack O'Callahan fight over a college rivalry, and Brooks tells the players to let go of old ties and become a team.
Cast
- Michael Mantenutoas Jack O'Callahan
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Miracle (2004)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Al Michaels and Ken Dryden re-recorded most of their television commentary for the film, but the last 30 seconds of the USA-Soviet game, including Michaels' "Do you believe in miracles?", used the original audio, as he did not feel he could re-create the call.
- Coach Brooks died in a car accident half a year before the movie was released, and the dedication before the credits reads: "This film is dedicated to the memory of Herb Brooks, who died shortly following principal photography. He never saw it. He lived it."
- O'Connor wanted Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks from the beginning because he needed someone with an athletic background and a fiery passion for sports, although Brooks' son stated years later that the first name in mind for the role was Tom Hanks.
- The team was cast with real hockey players to give the film a raw and accurate feel, as O'Connor figured it would be easier to teach hockey players to act than to teach actors to play hockey.
- Billy Schneider plays Buzz Schneider, a forward and part of the Conehead line, and in real life Billy is Buzz's son.
- In February 2026, after the United States men's and women's national ice hockey teams won gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, the film saw a 21x increase in viewership on Disney+.
- All the locations of the real-life hockey games were replicated by hockey arenas in British Columbia, and the team tryouts, set in Colorado Springs, were filmed at the Queen's Park Arena in New Westminster.
