h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Repost from Lil's with a minor update.

The story is about the 1980 Mens Ice Hockey team in the Lake PLacid olympics. It details the hiring of Herb Brooks as head coach along with the selection of the team. It show the excruciating almost darwinian process to select a team that could skate along with the Red Army team from the Soviet Union. The hockey action is the most realistic of any film to date, and the actors were all hockey players first. The skating is great, the physical presense of the players shown through. Archive footage from the television coverage of the games is provided as well as the now famous "Do you believe in miracles" line that was the origin of the name of "Miracle on the Ice".

I was amazed both as a hockey fan and as a lover of the movies. Disney really made one of the best films I have ever seen. It makes you care about all of the players and the coaches involved. At the same time it shows quite a lot of the malaise that the United States was going through at the time. The victory over the Soviet team was unheraled, and the film makers managed to convey that.

I am too young to really remember the games and the impact that that group of college students had both on the country and the state of US Hockey. I do however know that the Red Army team was one of the greatest to ever take to the ice. Only the spirit of the players driven by the coaching skills of the late Herb Brooks could beat the Soviets. Keep in mind that the Soviet team was made up of what amounts to professional players while the US team was only made up of amature players, all college students. Today just about every team fielded in the Olympics is made up of professional players. Team Canada in 2002 was a list of the greatest canadian NHL players. Team USA, the Czech Republic, Sweden and even Switzerland all were populated by NHL players in full or in part. The 1980 Winter Games was the last time that the US used true amatures. While I still love watcing Olympic Hockey, I can't help but feel somewhat robbed that I missed the amature team that stunned the Hockey world.

The only bad thing about this film is that it was produced by Disney, but even still I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys sports films, Hockey, or just a plain good story.