Netflix’s just-released documentary, Miracle: The Boys of ‘80, which chronicles the 1980 U.S. Olympic gold-medal men’s hockey team, is a wonderful watch.
Sure, the story has been told before, but it’s such compelling material that it deserves to be told over and over again. Al Michaels – the broadcaster who delivered the iconic line: “Do you believe in miracles?” – says nothing compares to what the amateur Americans accomplished in Lake Placid forty years ago.
Herb Brooks (photo, SB Nation)
Sadly, the architect of this extraordinary accomplishment, coach Herb Brooks, is not interviewed for the doc. He died tragically in a car accident more than two decades ago. Brooks’s passion, as well as fury, was this team’s engine.
Twenty years earlier, Brooks was the last cut on the ‘60 U.S. Olympic gold medal team. Brooks went on to an outstanding coaching career, winning multiple national championships at the University of Minnesota.
Still, a fire burned inside Brooks. There was unfinished business.
Brooks had six months to turn a bunch of college hotshots into an Olympic team. He overhauled the U.S. hockey program and was brutal with his players, working them to the point of collapse. Brooks’s favorite drill was suicides, which the players called “Herbies.”
Brooks was relentless, constantly pushing to pull out greatness from his players. If you were hurt, he’d call you a “candy ass.” If you weren’t playing well, he’d berate you. “You’re playing like you have a ten-pound fart on your head!”
Making himself the enemy was all by design, so any inner-team regional rivalries would disappear, and the players would unite.
Most didn’t believe that the Americans would even medal in ‘80. Indeed, mere days before the Olympics, the Russians — the so-called “Big Red Machine”– by far considered the crème de la crème of the hockey world, routed the Americans, 10-3, at Madison Square Garden. After that fiasco, avoiding embarrassment was first and foremost, not the medal stand.
About a mere two weeks later, before the rematch at Lake Placid, Brooks delivered one of the most memorable pep talks in sports history.
You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.
Brooks wasn’t a rah-rah guy. He didn’t celebrate on the ice with the team after victories. And he didn’t get to know his players well personally because he wanted to remain objective when making team decisions.
No, making a miracle is not hunky dory … until, well, it happens.
Sadly, Brooks never had the chance to make personal connections with many of his players. That’s a big reason “Miracle” is both glorious and poignant, yet also bittersweet.
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Jon Hart is the author of Unfortunately, I was available.
