The Rewatchables - ‘Miracle’ With Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: January 18, 2022

Do you believe in Rewatchables?! The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan head back to Lake Placid in the 1980 Winter Olympics to rewatch ‘Miracle,’ starring Kurt Russell. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the Bill Simmons podcast and The Watch with Chris Ryan. Coming up on this podcast, again, again, again, it's Miracle and it's next. The Soviets win. My goal is the beating. And that will get them going? Oh, yeah. It's your time. He starts February 6th.

All right, my name is Bill Simmons. I'm here with Chris Ryan. We're going to talk about Miracle. Every time the Winter Olympics come around, the first thing I think about is the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team defeating the Russians. My son didn't believe me. He watched this with me.

He loved it. This movie really holds up. You can find it on Disney Plus if you have Disney Plus. He didn't believe me. I said this was the greatest moment in my entire childhood. And he was like, that can't be true. And I'm like, it actually is. That's the greatest moment of the first 16 years of my life was when we beat the Russians.

I'm older than you. Yeah, I was only three. I want you to walk me through what this was like. I'll walk you through what it was like. The Winter Olympics was really, really, really well promoted in a way that we did, again, we say this all the time in the Rwatchables. Not a lot going back on in February 1980. We'd like four channels.

Cables, not a thing yet, no internet. So it's like, oh my God, there's going to be all this stuff on. I really cared about hockey back then. I cared about hockey all the way through college. I actually really cared about this team. I remember when the Russians killed them in MSG in the preseason game or the exhibition game. But I listened, I swear to God, in my room in Brooklyn, Massachusetts, I listened to us tie the Sweden game on my clock radio.

That's how invested I was in it. because they weren't even showing it. They didn't care. They didn't think the hockey team was going to be anything. It wasn't even on television. So it was just, I listened to it in my room,

and it was, I forget what time of, it was. And I remember the Bill Baker goal. Because if we, like, lost the Sweden game, I don't even know if we make the medal round. It would have been really hard. Yeah, that's what they say in the movie.

Like, there's this discussion where it's like, if they don't at least get a point from Sweden, it's going to be really hard for them to get out and get to the medals. They pull the goalie and he actually scores. So they did a good job. of hitting that moment in the movie. Because after that, they took off. They started winning.

So the game, doing this for memory, is a Friday night, and it's taped delayed. The game is at 5 o'clock East Coast time, but they're not showing it until prime time. Yeah, they wanted to move it to eight, but the Russians were like, that sucks for people in Moscow to watch this then. Right. The biggest moment of my life, at that biggest moments at that point are all sports-related, except for when we had the blizzard. but it's all like the Yankees Red Sox playoff game.

It's Pat's Raiders in the playoffs. It's the 1976 finals against the NBA, and it's the Bruins Canadians every year losing the Canadians. And then we have this. We're not supposed to beat the Russians, but it's tape delayed. But you could tape delay it back then, and nobody could know the answer.

So it's 5 o'clock, but the game's not till late. My mom and I go to Star Market in Brookline, and we're walking around, and we're in like the frozen food aisle, and I hear somebody say, it's 2-2 after the second period. No, no. After the first.

I just remember 2-2. Whatever it was 2-2 was after the first period. And doing like the, oh, my God. So then that was it. Didn't know what else happened. Come home. It comes on at 8 o'clock. And now it's like there's Jim McKay and he's live.

And Jim McKay is like Jim McKay and Walter Cronkite are the two most trusted people of basically my childhood. You're just studying Jim McKay's face. like he has this little gleam in his eye and he's like he knew right he knew he had already happened and he's like he knew Robbie and he's like he says something like you're gonna want to watch this one

or you're gonna want to stick around and it's like what does that mean so then watch the game it was 2-2 just like the person said in the star market and then going through and they're down 3-2 and it's like well this was heroic whatever and I'm in the basement of the house we lived in and we come back and we win, and then you're just holding on.

And it was the longest, they do a good job in the movie. It's 10 minutes after they take the lead. Yeah. And it's the longest 10 minutes of my entire life. It felt like seven hours. The Russians had 100 shots and Jim Craig's just in a video game and stopping everything. And they win. And it was the greatest moment ever.

But then Sunday they had to win the gold medal and they kind of skip over that in the movie. But the Sunday thing, like they fell behind in that one too. And it, they played Finland, right? They played Finland. then you assume they're going to win, but then you don't know, and then they pull that off too. But I, you know, it's 42 years ago, I remember everything. So when the movie, they're making the movie and it's like, all right, we don't need a movie about this.

But now I'm really glad the movie exists for people like Young Craig, a producer, and Dylan Berkey, who's on this as well. Like, I'm glad it exists. The YouTube stuff, you go, my son and I, we watch the YouTube stuff after the, after we watch the movie, terribly shot, square. You know, the cameras, like, you can barely see anything. Oruzio Oskar is the winning goal. The camera is just all the fans jump in front of the camera.

You can't see anything. So I'm glad that dramatic version of this exists. You must be too, right? Oh, my God. Yeah. I mean, so I mostly associate this with Al Michaels. I associate this with a television sports moment where the hair on your arm just stands up, where you're just like, I'm going to remember that this guy said that for most of the rest of my life.

And there's like, you know, half a dozen, a dozen of those. I, you know, you all, I, for some reason, I always remember, we will see you tomorrow night. But, like, do you believe in miracles is basically the iconic sports call that I can think of? I mean, and so I usually think of it as a television event, but the thing that's a genius, that's genius about this. And I think we could get so into it is, and I think Gavin O'Connor is basically, like, up there with Ron Shelton as far as, like, sports movie directors. Yeah, I agree. The way that they filmed the sports in this movie is incredible. I wish they would make 20 of these about some of the greatest games ever

where they're just like, we're going to shoot 200 miles of film of this Villanova Georgetown game. And like, let's just make more of these. Like, it's so good. It's a documentary. Yeah, there's a lot of how do they do that stuff with how they film it. Where how do they do the cameras? How'd they get this right? Because I think you could do it easier in 2021.

you could use drones and all this crazy shit. You could put cameras on the athletes. But for 2004, this is pretty groundbreaking. Yes. We hadn't seen anything like this. And from a hockey standpoint, there hadn't been that many hockey movies. Slapshot was the all-timer.

And that had, at the time, George Roy Hill, some really inventive stuff. But then it's like Mystery Alaska. You know, there just hadn't been the many hockey movies and Mighty Ducks, all those ones. This was like a whole other level. So I don't know if there's another way you could have done this. When this came out, it was 24 years after the miracle movie. It was

24 years after 80. It was still for like people my age, it was all of us were kind of like, ah, fuck this. You can't make a movie about this. This is the greatest sports moment in the history of this country. There's no way to make a movie of this. Right. But I think as the years passed, like I noticed like for my son, like he's not going to go and watch the whole game on YouTube. He's much more likely to watch the movies. So I'm much more receptive to the fact that that it exists. They also incredibly smart choice focusing on Herbrooks because you have so many players, you can't focus it on, you can't pick like five guys from this group to just make the movie about it. It has to be about the coach. So I thought that was smart and they made him way more interesting, I think,

than he probably was. The movie itself is the manifestation of Her Brooks's hockey philosophy. It's just more than the sum of its parts. Like you can barely tell the hockey players apart other than Oruzioni and Jim Craig. You know, I guess OC too. But for the most part, you're just like, that guy is, and is he, I don't know what position he plays. Like, when you're watching it,

it's just right in there. It doesn't take a lot of time to, like, introduce you to each of these guys individually. There's only, like, one or two of them get backstories. It shouldn't work. You know what I mean? Like, you should need to have an investment in these kids. But he's so,

Russell's so gigantic in this movie. And then as the movie builds and builds and builds, you're like, oh, like, this is, this is what Herb Brooks is talking about. This is like, if we play, like, a team of All-Stars couldn't beat the Russians, but a team like this could, you know, and it's like, a team of movie stars might not be able to make miracle work because you'd be distracted by like, oh, that's, that's Ryan Gosling or something like that. But instead, you just, you just completely immersed yourself in this whole thing. Yeah, that was in the 80s, they would have insisted on having, like, Tom Cruise as Mike. Eruzioni and all this stuff. And they just would have done really quick close-up shots of him skating and they would have cheated all these different ways. People cared more about hockey in 1982,

which I think is an important point. In Massachusetts, like, you know, a few of these guys were from BU or from the area. That was the thing that I thought was really cool this time around is all the Boston versus Minnesota stuff. Yeah, that was a real thing. It meant so much the Cold War context of it too, which the movie sets up in the beginning, that was a real thing. The Russians were super evil to everybody, especially like little kids like me. They ended up boycotting the, or we ended up boycott in the Summer Olympics. They ended up boycotting ours four years later. You know, all the Cold War movies were leading to Rocky Four and Rocky finally ending the Cold War

single-handedly. But back then, it was like they were the biggest villain we had. All their players were paid. It seemed incredibly unfair that we had to send like our non people, our non-pros, and just college kids to try to face this team that everybody agreed was the best team. We also didn't have the same kind of level of American hockey players back then that we do now. It's like way deeper. Oh, yeah. With a talent pool now.

So it was completely inconceivable that we could beat them. Like completely. And of course, the key moment is when the idiot Soviets coach takes out a Trediak. which is still like the dumbest move anyone's ever made in any game, the all-time worst coaching decision. But like the whole, like the way this machine went with how many people watching Olympics back then. You know, you get like 50, 60 million people watching a tape delayed hockey game. And then everything led to the Sports Illustrated cover four days later,

which I think was only one of two covers ever where they didn't have any sort of any writing on the cover. Oh, there's no cover lines. It's just a photo. and it becomes, I think, one of the three or four most famous sports photos ever of the team celebrating. And I think it's O'Callaghan on top of one of the other guys just with his hands up.

And then this became, I used to call Micah Ruzziore, America's house guest. He was always available for show up at any banquet. And these guys just dined on it for 40 plus years than they should have. Well, I wanted to ask you when they won, when the game was over, like, could you hear outside of your,

your house other people celebrating because I was thinking about other like huge USA victories and I was I was remembering on Landon Donovan scoring USA beating Algeria and like people in New York City where I was like kind of like running out of their offices like like there was like people on the street being like holy shit you know like I was wondering if there was any kind of celebration after the game ended yeah I was in the suburbs so I didn't I can't speak for that I was in a basement in the suburbs but I'm sure like in the cities and stuff, you could definitely have, everybody watch this game. Yeah.

And one of the crazy things about 1980 is not knowing the outcome when it had happened three hours earlier. It's just inconceivable that that could unfold that way. Possibly unanswerable question is, does Woge ruin this game in 2020? Walsh, like, USA wins 4-3. That's it. There's no surprise. It also, like, there's a patriotism back then that I just, you know, for a variety of reasons,

I'm not sure exists in the same way in the Olympics. I just don't think a team could galvanize the entire country this way. It was in Olympics that was in New York. All of it was East Coast. So we watched all that stuff. It was like Eric Hayden, all those guys back then. But it just felt like everybody was locked in. And then this team comes out of nowhere.

It will always be there. I can't imagine at any point in my life, any sports moment topping it. Not even the Red Sox beating the Yankees. Yeah, you know, I was going to ask you about the amateurism part of it because the hockey thing seems specific where, and it's cool how they set it up, where they're saying that there's like, everybody wants to go to the NHL, then there are these independent leagues like the IHL or whatever, right? But these guys are essentially the C&D level of talent. Because if they were good enough, they would have been in the NHL. Whereas like, you know, for other college sports at that time, I can't remember how long you had to be in school to get drafted in the NBA at that point. Was it junior year you could come out? out? No, you could come out after freshman year. It's just nobody did it. Nobody did it. And then also, like, you know, they were picking some pretty good college basketball players to play for Team USA. But yeah, like, the element where it's all these guys are kind of like, these are the dudes the NHL didn't want. Or they're still in school, but they're like, I just want to, I just want to

get drafted. Or I might go play for Atlanta in like an independent league. But they put it all aside to go to, I think that's an underrated part of this because now we just take for granted that everybody is semi-professional, as they probably should be. Yeah, Buzz Schneider was like 25 when he was on this team. There was four guys that I think stood out as NHL people. Like, the best one was Ken Morrow, who was the best defenseman on the team, who didn't really get a story in this, but he, after this, goes to the Islanders and wins a cup with the Islanders four months later, which has to be the greatest year in New In one's head. As like a focal point in that, team. They beat the Bruins that year too.

Craig was a big one. Like Craig had a chance to go to the flames. That was a real thing. Held off because of his mom. They cover that in the movie. And then when he goes to Atlanta, it's, he's like a star.

Yeah. You know, but he's a goalie. He's wearing a mask. It's like, who's going to come out to see a goalie? And then his career never really panned out, I think, the way people thought. Mark Johnson was another one that I think maybe his NHL career was a little disappointing

compared to what people thought. And then Dave Sulk had a good career. I think those were the best four. There might have been one other one. But yeah, Ken Morrow, unbelievable daily double going gold medal. And an Eiler's Cup. Yeah. Yeah, he's just carrying the cup around half hardly.

Like, guys, I had it so much better four months ago. From a movie standpoint. So we have a couple things that are great here. One is Gavin O'Connor, who ends up is, it's him or Shelton in the finals of Best Sports Movie Director. and we catch him early with this and he does a great job. Then Russell, and this is one of those, how many people could have done this part parts? Like, Costor, I think he overpowers it. I don't, I don't know if Costa are 20 pounds heavier, totally works. Hanks isn't old enough yet. Too soft.

Yeah, I think Hanks, yeah, you're right. Hanks is almost too nice. I don't know if I could have bought him. Russell has the right kind of edge, right? Russell's perfect. Hanks is doing this in a league of their own pretty much. You know what he? Yeah, and it feels like he's playing a character. He's not actually playing the person. Russell, you forget. It's Russell. Because he actually, like, when you think about like the best Russell performances, like whether it's the Carpenter movies, like, the escape from New York and yeah, big trouble in the thing, Tombstone, Death Proof, whatever, like, they're all pretty charismatic characters, even if they're like Snake Pliskin. They're still really charismatic. He just is like, Herb Brooks is a ballbreaker. And like he never, ever, ever really

breaks except for the Christmas party, which I think is actually the one thing that they added, where they were like, Herb Brooks did not go to our Christmas parties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for the most part, you just completely get lost, and he is the spine of the movie. He's in almost every single scene. He is essentially like the driving force of the narrative, but also like the soul of the movie. And in a lot of ways, like, I sometimes wonder whether or not the reason why Miracle, would you think, Do you think it's considered one of the best sports movies ever made?

No, I think it has some real flaws, which we'll cover. But I think part of it is because it's like it refuses to ever like, it did make concessions to movies. It's just like the movie is the movie like occurrence that happened where like the hockey team beat the Russians. They don't do anything else. They try with Patricia Clarkson and stuff where it's like, yeah, let's have like a, let's have a sweet side to this movie.

Let's have a personal side to this movie. And they just, they don't really pull it off. but Russell's just incredible. All the hockey stuff, all the halftime speeches or the pregame speeches is just amazing. Well, he came on my podcast four and a half years ago, and we're going to play a little clip here of Russell and I talking about how he felt about it. Because I think this movie meant a lot to him, but he thought the script was mediocre and they had to work with that. So we'll play that right now. You nailed what my review would have been of that movie if you'd ask me.

Mediocre script. You were great in it. It's a mediocre script. It's not a mediocre movie. No, it's not. I disagree that you think it's a mediocre movie. I said mediocre script. Yeah, I agree with that.

I think the movie worked. I think it worked because you were good at it. I'm not laying something on the writers. I mean, I think they wrote the basics. What are you going to do? But there were some things that we needed to change, take out, put in. Like you do on all movies. There's nothing different about Miracle in terms of that, in terms of the

working on a script. But in particular, you needed to know what Herb had at stake. So that every time you're with Herb, you just didn't want to get back to the guys. It was like, okay, got it, Herb. you're you know you got it you know you want to win got it no you got to understand what somebody's putting life and and that was fascinating he came to do the podcast it was one of my favorite ones ever our offices in in l.a it's in hollywood and the sunset gower studios and we would have these celebrities would come and they always would have like between one and three PR handlers

right when they when they come they're always with people Russell comes, it's like 10 o'clock in the morning. He's wearing like a leather jacket. He's by himself. He looks like Kurt Russell. He stinks of Marlboro Reds. He's spoken Sigs. It's just great.

He puts his keys and his Marlboro Reds on my table as he comes in. He's like, hey, I'm Kurt Russell. And it was just like a movie star. Yeah. And it was just so cool. We talked about all the movies. He made all the choices he made. And it was, I haven't listened to a while,

but it was stuff like me going through his IMDB and going, so what happened these four years where you didn't make any movies after Miracle? And he's like, I just got in a wine. That was like, a whole lot of thing. But he was so cool talking about all the carpenter and stuff.

But it was so clear that he had such obvious affection for this particular movie because he loses himself in a character, which isn't, you always feel like it's Kurt Russell in a movie. This time you didn't. I felt like he lost himself in the Hurd Brooks thing. I also wonder, I mean, Wyatt, his son,

a hell of an actor, played hockey. I wonder whether or not he must have been in youth hockey at this time. Yeah, he tells a story on my pot about how he met Herb Brooks, because Herb Brooks was recruiting his recruiting his son for whatever thing he had.

And that's how they met. And they were talking about how they were doing this movie. And he asked, at that point, him and O'Connor couldn't really get the script together in the way he was happy with. And they asked him what that year was like. And Herb Brooks said, lonely.

And him and O'Connor looked at each other, and that was when they realized, oh, this is what we have to do. This guy's obsession to try to make this teamwork. And then an incredible real-life backstory if he's the last cut in the 1960 team, which is why that Ralph Cox scene is so important. Yeah. That he understands more than anybody how brutal that is. And yeah.

Kurt Russell. Do you want to do top five Russell movies now or do you want to wait until probably unanswerable questions? We can wait for it. I have my list pretty much though. Okay, let me make sure. Okay, Russell, I got that.

All right, we'll do that later. Quite a career. He's been in my life, initially he was Jungle Boy on Gilligan's Island. Yeah. So in the Gilligan's Island he runs, he was the guy who was Jungle Boy and then was in all these Disney movies. And then switch flips with Elvis

and then escaped from New York. and all of a sudden he becomes Kurt Russell. This is also, we should mention the one star on the poster, era of sports movies. Yep. And I've talked a bunch of times about the different errors of sports movies, most recently on Sean's pod. But this is from 97 to basically 05, premise, get one big star,

market the hell out of it, and you're going to have like a $15 million dollar budget and it'll make $30 to $40 million bucks and potentially do really, really well, if it's the right movie, like Remember the Titans did. And you did the one star. So you got, For Love of the Game, Costner. Varsity Blues, Vanderbik.

Big. The beak was big at the time. Remember the Titans Denzel. The replacements, Keanu. Hardball, which we've done on the rewatchables. Kianu. The rookie, Dennis Quaid. Yep.

Summer catch. Freddie Prince Jr. There was some Prince Jr. Buzz back then. Matthew Lillard was in it. Miracle and Coach Carter. And that was an eight-year run. And Gridiron gang kind of ends it because it wasn't very good.

And it didn't feel that authentic. And you had The Rock as a football coach. And that's kind of the year the sports movies starts shifting to really the last 15 years of modern sports movies where you have like DMD United and Moneyball and Warrior. We've talked about some of these. We've talked about that shift. this is like the heart of the one star for the poster era. Yeah, I would actually probably put

Blindside in that somewhere. You know, I guess that's a little bit later. Although Blindside's a good movie. It has some issues, but Sandra Bullock's incredible in that movie. It is just like, Sandra Bullock is the person on this poster. Oh, 100%.

You know what I mean? Yeah, it's a Sandra Bullock vehicle, but it's almost like she's so good. Like, did she win the Oscar for that? I think she did. I believe she did, yeah. Yeah. So that's like, you win an Oscar.

it's almost like, I can't put you with like Coach Carter and Summercatch, but. So there's also this interesting thing that this is now, you know, it's on Disney Plus. Was this Touchstone or was it Disney? I can't remember. I think it was Touchstone at Ford Disney. Yeah. And then there's like, there's a couple of these. Like there's like the Kevin Costner running movie.

Oh yeah, McFarland. McFarland, which is a bad. I did one of these. Connor and I, we did Million Dollar Arm. It was another one. It was like the two baseball players from India. Hey, so wait, also I was going to ask you, Didn't John Hawk do a 30 for 30 about this game, but from the Russians perspective?

He did. He told it from the Russian side, which was an interesting way to do it. I mean, one of the enduring images of that game is the Russians kind of in awe and dumbfounded by how happy the Americans were realizing like they've had no joy playing sports for forever. Best actor that year, Kurt Russell not nominated. It didn't make me upset. said at the time. But now I look back at the category and I feel like there's a case. So Jamie Fox wins for Ray. Don Chito and Hotel Rwanda, which is really good. I'm down with that.

Leo and the Aviator, I think I'm good with that too. Like, you don't know? Anti-Aviator? I'm fine with it, but this was a period when Leo was, I mean, the J. Edgar Aviator era is like a little bit of an oddball era for me. I was worried that we were going to lose Leo to period pieces. Clint Eastwood million-dollar baby. I'm okay with it. And then Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland. Give me a break. That's the one that feels super flimsy.

Like, first of all, fuck Johnny Depp. Second of all, finding Neverland, come on. It just feels like they're phoning that one in. I think you could have made a case. Russell cracks that list. Sure. In retrospect, right? $28 million budget made $64 million.

That's about... what the sports movie range was. You would make twice as much as you spent and they would have to do a lot of marketing and stuff like that. Ebert, two stars. I was still disappointed in Raj.

I thought this was at least a two and a half. Not a hockey guy. He said, Miracle is a sports movie that's more about the coach and about the team, and that's a miracle too. He has some thoughts on the wife

that I want to say for what's age the worst. Not his thoughts, but the wife character, because I think we have to dive into that. let's a lot to discuss in the categories. Let's do that one break. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity. Or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

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Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. All right. Most rewatchable scene. I like when Herb picks the 26th man triath team in an hour. And Noah Emrick as assistant Craig Patrick, who's good, is just like, what? Yeah.

This is the list. And it's like, that's my list. I've studied these guys. You're missing some of the best players Looking for the best players Craig, I'm looking for the right ones He's got the good accent But just all these poor guys

Who had to try out And Herb already knew what the team Was gonna be I thought that was good O.C. fighting McLeanhan is great To get back at the cheap shot, yeah The Boston, Minnesota First of all I mean, I love the OC character

He's from Charlestown Where I lived for 10 years after college Just classic classic Charlestown kid holding the grudge. He goes full mass hole. It's just amazing. When they're listening to Dofier the Reaper in the bar, he's like, well, I wanted to win a national championship. That pansy over there cheap shots me.

Is there a way we could have worked OC into the town as like Jim's buddy who's like the he's one of the drivers for him? I think that would have worked. I love that scene though. He also beats the shit out of McClanhan, which I thought was realistic because Charles Town kids didn't know how to score. crap. I like that scene. Herb makes everyone do splints after the exhibition game. They're herbies. They're called. Again! The lights go out. Yeah. He does the, this cannot be a team of

common men. A lot of good herb speeches in this. This cannot be a team of common men. Because common men go nowhere. You have to be uncommon. Again. Herb, this has gone on long enough. Everybody on that line. Somebody's going to get hurt. And then Arrugioni finally puts an end to it. Mike Ruscioni.

Winchester, Massachusetts. Who do you play for? Play for. United States of America. That's all, gentlemen. Herb, here's what he wants to hear. He walks off. is awesome.

The four guys intervened with Herb on Timmy Harr, another, Timmy Herr. Another good one. Waiting outside the bus. When they bring the ringer in. Also, like, maybe Herb should have kept that kid. He seemed like he was a pretty good forward. I researched that kid. He was like the league.

He played for Herb. He was a senior that last year. And he had like led the whole country and goals that year. Yeah. Solid point. Maybe he should have made the team. So what I wanted to ask though, what's up with the, do all hockey players call their coach by their first name?

I think maybe in 80 they did. Now maybe it's coach. Yeah. I don't know. I like the, I like when players intervene with the coach and they do the whole family thing. Some good life lessons in there.

Another rewatchable. Ralph Cox gets cut. Yeah. God. In a weird way, he becomes one of the most famous trivia question answers for sports that we've ever had, right? It's the Ralph Cox situation.

it's a really good scene like watching the cut is like they that's like really good acting from that kid also good from like hey coach wants to see you and it's just that cut to a couple of the guys in the locker room

and there's this weird like oh shit but they don't want to say anything it's really liked it my son was watching it going that's so unfair that he gets cut and I'm like look man people get cut this isn't everyone gets to play like at some point you're playing at the next level of my son's

like i'm never getting cut like all right cool we'd have that irrational confidence that seems really good i also love ralph cox's mustache yeah i was going to say toxic stash is incredible a real like throwback to slap shot the sweden game really from the locker room thing when he goes at mclean and gets him and gets him starts yelling at him about what he's not playing

blah blah you want to play and makes him mad and he has to be held back and then he's like oh that'll get him going bruise on the leg

is a hell of a long way from the heart you candy ass what you call me you heard me you want me to play huh is that what you want

I want you to be a hockey I am a hockey player you want to play on one leg huh I'll play on one leg I'll get him going get off of me oh yeah

does that make you happy I'll clean up You want me to play on one leg? Whenever I have carpal tunnel, I always am like, You want me to blog with one arm? Herb's pregame speech before the USSR, let's just play it. One game. If we played them ten times, they might win nine.

But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we skate with them. Tonight, we stay with them. And we shut them down because we can. Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team. You were born to be hockey player. You were meant to be here tonight.

Their time is done. It's over. I'm sick and tired of hearing about what a great hockey team the Soviets have. Screw them. This is your time. Now go out there and take it. stuff. One of the best sports movie speeches we've had. And this is like, if you haven't even seen this movie, you've seen this because it gets played before more or less every sporting event in America.

Big Jumbotron thing. It's funny because my son and now we're banging through all the sports movies. We watch Rudy. And the Dan Devine character has a good one too where he goes to, this is our house. You know, nobody comes into our house. How many times has that been on a Jim Hortron over the years. Well, this one was great. This is your time. Now go out there and take it. Okay, Herb.

I mean, I don't even know how to split this up from a rewatchable standpoint, but Herb before the third period, there's this little, it's a weird moment where it goes from the second period and the third period and we're not in the locker room with them. I wonder if O'Connor would fix if he had to do it over again. It's a little clumsy, but it does lead to the start of the third period when he pulls everybody in and he does the listen to him. Listen to him. That's what you've done.

We've come from behind in every game in this tournament so far and we can do it again. We can beat these guys. And the whole crowd's going nuts and that that seems really good. Then the whole third period is fantastic. For me, for most rewatchable, I mean, you have to go with the third period

of the USSR game. With that said, I do love the again again scene. The again again scene. I'll throw, can I throw one that is like probably the most moving moment of the movie for me is when he tells O.C. he made the team. And O.C. thinks he's going to get cut. Yeah, that's great. You're right. That should be in there. And O.C. is just like, I swear to God, Hub, if you're not being serious right now. I'm on the phone with Jim right now. We're going to rob a bank. All right. So, we'll go third period. Yeah. You have to. What stage the best? I like the open. I like the

credits history lesson for people like my son and producer Craig laying out how the 70s went with Watergate and the gas shortage and Aitola Comani. I do understand what they're going for, but I'm like, do it? Does the fall of Saigon really play into this hockey match? They really went for it, though. He's just like, fuck it. We're doing, we're running back the 70s. Right. Important piece in there, though, was the Carter Malay's speech, which they have a little bit later in the movie, which is one of the great speeches of all time and just cemented him not winning the re-election, but is a really good speech that I wish somebody would give now. The hockey.

Yeah. We'll go, when we do Apex Mountain, we'll go whether this was best sports ever in a movie, but the hockey just. So it's worth mentioning, they pick hockey players instead of actors. Which is another one stage the best. It's easier to. teach hockey players to act that it is to teach actors how to play hockey. And the verisimilitude or whatever you want to say,

like you are so, you believe so deeply that you are watching these guys really do this. It's wild. And the best thing is the goalie, who's the one guy who didn't necessarily have to be an A-list or hockey player, who they get more of an actor for, but you could just throw a mask on them and get a stunt double. So they had Bill Ranford,

who was a goalie for a long time for, He played for the Bruins, and he's basically Jim Craig, but you would never know because he's got all the equipment on. So that was the one place you could cheat, but you can cheat totally organically. Yeah. The hockey's awesome. They did such an age. And look, I'm not always a, it has to be as realistic as possible guy. You know, Teen Wolf, I like having chubby and Teen Wolf.

I like having five foot two Michael J. Fox. Like, it has its place. Stallone as an arm wrestler. like, but for this, I think it really helped. I think there's certain movies where it helps. It's the era. So I was thinking about this. Like, if you were going to do a movie now about the NFL,

you'd be hard pressed to make it look better than Sunday night football. You know what I mean? Like, you'd be hard pressed to make it look better than it does on a big screen television on any given Sunday night. Yeah. But from this era, where they basically had one camera and it was not great. and there's not really a lot of close-ups and there's no sound that's good.

Like, we should be mining this 1975 to, like, 1988 era of, like, make lots of sports movies about the greatest moments of this time because you could shoot it in a way that, like, completely brings it to life in a different way.

Like, you're saying you guys were watching the YouTube's after this movie, it's like, it's like night and day. It's like, you can't really watch the highlights unless you just want to hear Michaels, but the best part about this movie and what I was going to say, age of the best, is having Al Michaels redo all his audio

so that you basically get the third act of this movie narrated by Al Michaels. It's an incredible, I had that on there as well. It's an incredible wrinkle for this movie. And he's talked about it. I remember doing podcasts with him where he was so delighted to be involved again. Obviously, it was the greatest moment of his career.

And it's funny, they have to go back to his real call from the last 10 seconds. The podcast is still loose. 11 seconds. His voice is just higher and more excited. It's not like the voice that he eventually settled into. So it's noticeable, but at the same time, they had to do that. He wasn't going to recreate his, do you believe, in miracles?

Plus, you can't recreate Ken Draden trying to interrupt him as he's doing it. Kendraud is unbelievable. It's like, Ken, turn his bike off. Let Al have this. Underrated part was Al Michaels' intro to the game. I thought it was like, if I had seen that, I would have been like, holy shit, history's about to happen, where it's just like,

I don't have to tell you politically what this means or like on a national level what this means. This is just two teams on a sheet of frozen ice in Lake Placid. And I was like, fuck yes, let's go. It was so, honestly, I remember that whole night. And I don't,

I don't remember things that happened to be three years ago, but the fucking staring at Jim McKay's vase, Michael's with the intro, how long it seemed like between periods where you're just like, I know this is taped delay. Just get to the third period. They're like, no, no, let's go show some other events.

Let's pretend like Brooks is in the back room, like tweaking this a little bit, yeah. But you could really do this until probably like 2000. They were even doing this in 96, you know, where they were just pretending you had no idea what happened. I had in what stage the best, but we just covered in rewatchable as the decision to let OC play in the Olympics.

Not only a great scene, but really good job by her. Brooks. He only 20 spots. He knew how important OC was for the, for the personality of the team, for the toughness of them. And he knew he needed them on the team. But I think most coaches probably cut him. It's kind of crazy. It was only 20 spots because you think like that's, that's, you have two goalies. You have five defensemen, maybe six. And then four lines of forwards. And that's it. And especially since he was basically playing like Nolan Richardson 40 minutes of hell. You know what I mean?

Right. And constantly rotating lines. Like, yeah. That has a wood stage the best, too. The Russians back then. Hockey was so different back then. I actually loved it more back then because you could have like the Wayne Cashman, Dave Schultz type kind of bruiser, slow skater guys.

And every team had like a couple guys. Like ours was Rick Middleton. these just incredibly fluid skater playmaker guys that, you know, they were mostly European. We didn't have the Russians really back then, but they're always like, you know, the Stasni brothers were on Quebec and things like that. And they just kind of moved differently. And when you watch this Russian team, it really did seem like they were playing a different sport. It was like if you had, if we played the Olympics and it was a team that just was making half court

threes, like routinely. And you'd be like, what is this? What's happening? That was what it was like to watch the Russians, the way they use space. Now everybody, now that's what hockey looks like. Right. But it's really cool how he's like, I want to create a hybrid of the Russian and Canadian styles. Yeah. And everybody always sits back and lets Russia attack them. And they try to show up and play counter. He's like, I want to go right at them. And that's like, that happens a lot in soccer where there's like basically like people will be like, well, we'll just let Barcelona have the ball for 99% of this game and hope we get like a lucky goal. But yeah. No, it's like the old you have to beat Mike Tyson by going at Mike Tyson and throwing punches

at him and putting him on the defensive. It's it's with that, with that. I mean, the Canadians were like that too in a lot of ways because they, they were always like at a speed just at like Gila Fleur people like that. They just had a speed that just felt different. And the tendency was just to pack in and try to counterpunched, and it was never a good idea. We said, hey, we covered out Michaels. Oh, Noah Emmerich I have for What Stage the Best. This and beautiful girls are really the Noah Emmerich Apex Mountain combo.

So the only thing I would say is that for most of this movie, Craig Patrick seems like he's like, like, the guy in Midnight Run, who's like, I'm going to go get the papists. You know what I mean? Like, I'm going to go get some donuts. You know, like he seems like it's just like a glorified water guy. Craig Patrick didn't even win like multiple cups as a GM. And he's like a whole thing.

Yeah, he was a real hockey guy. Yeah. I think, but I think it spoke to what Herb that he was just this force of nature he had to lay out. His facial expressions, I guess is what, the Noah Emmerich, like, which are basically the same expressions for beautiful girls where it's like, oh, cool. Tim Hutton's going to play the piano for us. And oh, my God, he's playing Neil Diamond.

It's like the same lucky ass when Herb's like. do one thing at the end of the game, right, where he puts a guy on. And I was like, what are you doing? And he's just like, trust me, right? Yeah, yeah. They give him the one moment. The other stuff I had to age the best. I mean, a couple of lines, but I could save that for best, best quote. I thought the BUM stuff was awesome. Yeah. And my favorite little, little moment is when they're getting towards the end of the game in the third period. And her Brooks goes, he doesn't know what to do. Yeah. That was great.

Yeah, because he didn't pull the goalie. Woodsage the worst. Herb Brooks died before the movie came out. He never saw it. He died in a car accident. That's why in the credits, they say how he never saw it. He lived it. But such a bummer, like such a random stroke of bad luck that he didn't get to not only

not see the movie, but the outpouring of when they released the movie and that whole thing. Anyway. More what's age of the world. this doesn't relate to the movie necessarily, but this ruined all subsequent USA Olympic hockey things. I remember 84, 88, whatever the Pat La Fontaineer was. And everybody wanted this to happen so badly again.

It just is, you know, it's not, now all the pros play, it's a little different. But there was this stretch after 80 where he's just like, could it happen again? It's like, no, this is why they call it the miracle. It was, if you played this game 10 times, Russia wins nine. Yeah.

The 1980 players They were pleased with the film But they did They pointed out what you said Like Herb wasn't going To holiday parties And they did not like Herb But they respected them

They just didn't like them All right So the wife This is a sports movie trope Right And I've written about it a bunch of times Back when my fingers worked About the wet blanket wives

And sports movies It's their way to Pull an actress in a movie That they just know They need a female but they have nothing to do for her. This is one of the worst examples ever. It's, I don't really understand even,

you can make a case Herb's wife just shouldn't be in the movie at all. This is what Ebert wrote. He said Patricia Clarkson has the thankless role of playing yet another movie spouse whose only function in life is to complain that his job

is taking too much time away from his family. This role complete with the obligatory shots of the wife appearing in his study door as the husband burns the biddyed oil is so standard, so ritualistic, so boring that I propose all future movies about workaholics, just make them bachelors to spare us the dead air. I couldn't agree more.

It's such a tremendous waste of Patricia Clarkson. Like, she's such a great actress. And it's just like, you basically have her in a nightgown being like, her time to come to bed. It's like, give me a fucking break. It's so bad. But this is how we did it. Like, if they're going to show it, like, have like a real argument between these two people

or have like a real conversation or whatever it is. But I'm sure that there was some tension at home because he was so dedicated to this. And it does uncover a little bit of his psychological scars from getting left off that team. But at the end of the day, you could have found that out through all the hockey stuff anyway.

Or if you're going to have the wife, she should just be way mad at him all the time. You got to go that direction. If they make a movie about me, I just want the wife yelling like, wait a second. You have to watch another Patriots. game? What the hell? I'm going to play tennis. I don't know why they do it that way. I don't

understand it, but I will say the modern sports movie, the last 15 years, like a movie like Moneyball, when Robin Wright comes in as the wife, it's a great scene. Billy Bean doesn't have like, oh, let's shoehorn in the girlfriend character to kind of show how hard Billy Bean's working. Like, we've moved past it. Right. The wife characters died in sports. movies for the most part. I will say I was watching Rocky 3 recently, a movie that quite possibly will be on the rewatchable schedule this year. In fact, I would say it's a mortal lock. I think Adrian does a great job in that movie. In Rocky 3? Yeah, I think she really, really helps out. It has a great beach scene. She looks fantastic. And I think she's really essential to that

movie. And I support AJ and Rocky 3. Rocky 4 opposite. another one's age the worst. So I wrote about this movie for ESPN the magazine in 2004. This was the ending of the piece that you could read now if you read it. And basically the piece is like, I live this. It's going to be tough for me to watch this movie. I don't need to. I lived it.

The real thing's better than the movie. Is this like cold takes exposed? Yeah. Okay. The ending was, if none of this makes sense, we'll see the movie. I'm staying home. I didn't want a videographer at my wedding either. I can't imagine any movie topping the real thing.

And then in parentheses, it says, by the way, I'm seeing it on Friday. And that's the ending. The original ending did not have, by the way, I'm seeing it on Friday. The original ending was, I can't imagine the movie topping the real thing. And that has the call.

So what happened? Did they edit her cut it? Yeah, because it was ESPN and Disney. And they were like, this is the only time this ever happened to me at ESP in the magazine where they changed something I wrote. They were like, you can't,

this is like a huge Disney movie. can't, like, trash the idea of the movie in your column. Like, we got to figure out an alternative. So I came over that. I actually, this is one of the rare times I wasn't that mad. Like, usually when they would pull stuff out, I'd flip out. In this case, I was like, all right, I see that one. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Maybe. Who was running Disney then? Was that Iiger or Eisner? That was still Eisner. Yeah. So we added the parentheses, by the way, I'm seeing it on Friday. Ironically, a better ending. Yeah. Like funnier.

but it wasn't what I wrote. So any other what's staged the worst for you? Yeah. I think we as a society technologically have arrived at the place that we could go back and add ADR audio to this movie that adds a bunch of profanity. Because there's no way these guys didn't swear all the time. And if you've seen Slapshot, another possible rewatchable, then you know that hockey players curse really well.

Yeah. The best. And these characters specifically, O.C., Rizzo, Coxie. Let me just get. one motherfucker or one cock sucker from these guys. Like, come on, you know that they were talking like this. Yeah, they could have done the R-rated special edition R-rated version. But I see why they did it.

They wanted four-year-olds to watch this movie, you know? Yeah, I know. Yeah. But now that it's like we've got, we coming up on the anniversary of it or whatever, like just put together the R-rated version of Miracle for me. Yeah, OC definitely dropped some fucking F-bombs. Yeah. All right.

We're going to take one more break and then we'll do casting what ifs. Casting what ifs. O'Connor was focused on Kurt Russell the whole time. Looked like him, knew as the type of actor and wanted somebody who played sports and understood sports. So that was not a casting what ifs. They cast Buzz Schneider is his son Billy who they didn't realize until after they cast him. So Buzz Schneider's son plays him. 4,000 people audition for the 20 roles.

And as we covered, they went for all real hockey players. The guy who played O.C., Michael Mantonuto, there was somebody in the triouts who was really bowling everybody, and he got mad and ended up getting a fight with the guy. And then afterwards, he apologized to the director, and O'Connor said, no, no, that was good. And cast him as OC. because that was like the first one to drop the gloves.

The Jim Craig standing was Bill Ranford as we covered. Gavin O'Connor has a cameo. He drapes the American flag on Jim Craig after the U.S. Gold Medal. I don't know if you feel the same, but if I was a director, I would totally go Scorsese. First of all, I would try to be in it. Like Scorsese putting himself in taxi driver.

I would have done that in any movie I directed. But you should do it where you actually are doing, you're actually doing the Scorseseezy from taxi drive. for speech, no matter what the movie is. Maybe not that far, but maybe the M. Knight-Shammelon version of this, where he's always like in his own movie somehow. But I was like when Scorsese did that. Best that guy, okay, the Joey Pants award.

Nita ruling, is Noah Emmerich eligible? I think he's in too much of it. He is... No, this is just for Best That guy. Is Noah Emmerich or is he Noah Emmerich? No way. No way. I agree with you.

Because he's Truman Show, like he's done a lot of good stuff. So the answer is Eddie Cahill. who played Jim Craig, who is that guy from CSI, New York. See, I have Kenneth Walsh as the doc. Oh, that guy. He's in a lot. I didn't even know what that guy's name was.

He's in Twin Peaks. Like, he's in everything. He's in a ton of stuff. Okay, that's good. I also think Sean McCain, who plays Walter, who's like the guy who gets Herb the job and shows up to a couple of the practices. Yeah, he taps a Ruzioni before the gold medal game.

That's a good one. Vincent Hanna, give me all he guys. out of word for dialing it up. It could be worse acting. It could be dialing up too far. The again! That's up there. There's some, when the guys all have to hang out in the bar,

there's a couple actors that you're not exactly watching, you know, young Leo in Wednesday, Gilbert Grape. But I think the again, Herb dialing it up in that scene. Russell has a couple of moments where he takes it to 11. For sure. He thousand it. Jed Nelson Award for somebody who's a different movie. Clearly the wife.

The Patricia Clark said, I'm not getting enough of sex home indie movie directed by, who's our guy who hasn't made a movie in 10 years? With Sturlman? No, the guy who hasn't made it. The guy who's in directed movie in like 16 years. The guy who did like the Kate Winsup movie in 06, that weird Kate Winsett movie with Patrick Wilson,

Little Children. Oh, Todd Field, yeah. Todd Field, yeah. The Todd Field movie of Her Brooks, wife. I would watch that. That would be amazing. She starts having an affair with somebody in Minnesota.

Recasting couch. I don't know. So here's, let me give you the class of this like 04 era. Let me tell you if you would add any of these guys to the roster or replace them. All right? Yeah. Josh Hartnett. A little old.

Oh, you're talking about real actors. Yeah. Oh, for real actors, get gosseling in here. He could have played somebody. He would have learned out of skate too. Yeah. Paul Dano, Josh Hart Day. No, I'm serious.

Ryan Gosling. And then the two Riggins is Taylor Kitch and Garrett Headland. Oh, Taylor Kitch should have been in this. That's a good one because he probably could skate, right? He's from Canada. He was a fucking, like, basically a professional hockey player, yeah. Oh, he should have been in this. So who would you add Taylor Kitch play?

I mean, if you have Taylor Kitch play OC. No, I like the O.C. that you could make Taylor Kitch be... Maybe he's McClanahan. Yeah, McClainahan. Yeah. Although I did like... You want me to skate on one leg!

Fuck you, Herb! Half-ass internet research. Russell took a pay cut, so the 800 to $1,000 extra is used as the fans of the hockey game could enjoy a full hot meal instead of a brown bag lunch. Kurt Russell, great guy. Kurt Russell, right-handed, used his left hand in the movie. Her Brooks was a lefty. The game was...

filmed in Vancouver, the Soviets game, at the P&E Agrodome, which also featured the Rocky Drago fight in 1985 for Rocky 4. I mean, I would call that the Cold War mecca. It's the Madison Square of Cold War sports movies. So that happened. Dream on, which I should have mentioned in what stage the best. I had it here. I forgot to put it in what stage the best. I just dream on in any sports movie is great. It's a great use of Dream On in the closing credits. Other things Dreamon has been in. A live orchestrated version of The Last Action Hero, The Virgin Suicides, Episode 49 of Cold Case, and Glee. Do you like that episode of Cold Case? Don't remember it. And then a real fucking bummer of Half-Aasterner Research. I know you know this,

but Michael Mantonuto, who played Jack O.C., left acting, joined the U.S. Army. me. He fought ISIS in Iraq, fought ISIS in Syria as a member of the Green Berets, came home in 2017, or came home in the 2010s and actually committed suicide. Yeah, it's a really wild story.

Yeah. So that's a bummer. It's tough to watch that movie, because I actually think he's really good in this movie. I think he could have been an actor. He easily could have, felt like he could have been Tim Riggins. So anyway, that's a bummer. Apex Mount. Kurt Russell.

Oh, I have one more piece of a half-ass internet research. Go. Jim Craig did stop 39 shots. When you're watching the game in the movie, you're like, that's, he's taking a lot of, a lot of hits here. Like, they're really teeing off on him. But he really did.

It was 39 to 16 shots, shots attempted. And he really, like, I think they show all 39 in this movie. Yeah. It felt like 20 in the third period. There's some tough half-ass internet research for Jim Craig, too. Like he had a, he had a DUI. in the 80s and that I think was a manslaughter. Oh, man.

Yeah, it gets dark. I think he's rebuilt it to some degree, but that doesn't have anything to do with the movie. Apex Mountain. Kurt Russell, I'm going to say no. No. What is Kurt Russell's APEC? So for me, it's one of the three Carpenter movies. It's either Escape Big Trouble or The Thing.

They all have their qualities, but I would probably go escape from New York. Are you saying the best or the apex? When did Kurt Russell have the most juice? It's not escape from New York. So that would be tango and cash then or something, right? I think it's in that tango and cash, escape from L.A. kind of era, which leads to Tombstone, which I think is actually his apex.

Right, because he basically directs Tombstone. Yeah. He is the most juice in Tombstone. Okay, yeah. Gavin O'Connor, no. Olympic hockey, yes. The Winter Olympics, yeah. sports

I think maybe for me I think it was my Apex Mountain just in life much less sports Yeah Noah Emrick Would you go this

Beautiful Girls or Truman Show? No I'd probably say I would probably say Maybe the Americans for him Being on the American Oh good call you're right The P&E Agrodome I still think it's Rocky for

Yeah but what an era for What an era. Stallone broke his ribs in the P&E Agridone. They had to stop filming for two weeks and come back. Great times. Al Michael, so 1980 no. But I think 2004, yes. Right.

At that point, he's the voice of Monday Night Football. He's done all these amazing. He's like the zealig of sports. He's done all these amazing events, worked with all these people. He's at the pinnacle of his powers and then comes back and is the voice of Miracle, which he's in. It's like, what a flex. Yeah.

That he got to ride out his golden years with Chris Collinsworth being like, Al, this Taylor Heineke, he just likes to sling it. I don't know. I was thinking if Collinsworth was doing the 80 Olympic game instead of Ken Darden. I mean, Al, the courage of these guys. It's just a rousy owner. We were talking to her Brooks before the game. He says, man, you know, like Jim Craig is just a wall back there, a Berlin wall.

We talked to Herb and he told us to fuck off. He wouldn't talk to us. But Al, he is so impressed by Jim Craig. I just can't. I can't say enough about Jim Craig. Sports Illustrated. I actually think this was the apex of Sports Illustrated in 1980, not the movie, but it was that the covers meant the most.

They still had the writing was still at its peak. They had challengers. And then this cover, you could argue, was the apex. How about evil mute, Russian sports movie villains. Would you go with Drago or the hockey coach? We don't get enough of Boris or the coach in this movie to make them into an actual villain. Yeah, the Russian coach, which I forgot to do Dion Wader's Award. So let's do it now. I had for Deon Waders O.C. or the Russian coach, because he has no lines in the movie, but has a great

like combination Russian coach, Brezhnev. I was going to say, he has like three expressions. Can we nominate his eyebrows for Deon Waiter? He's got that kind of he's evil at one point, but then he's confused and then he's angry. And then at the end with Herb Brooks, he's like kind of has the eye impress. Great job for somebody. Would you say, can I ask though? Would Al Michaels count as Dionne Waiters? Oh, that's amazing.

So would you go, Al Michaels or O.C. Is O.C. in too much of the movie? Well, I think that the two best scenes are Mantonudo as O.C. getting, finding out he's going to make the team. And the Jim Craig scene where he's just like. I fucking played for you this whole time, and now you're going to cut me, you're going to bench me for Janney.

Yeah. That's a really good one, but let's go without Michaels. All right, that's good. I like that. By the way, I totally think either of us could have played Jim Craig's father

in this movie. All you have to do is look kind of sad and then just kind of raise your arms and cheer. Yeah, Jimmy! Come out, Jimmy! Yeah! USA! Not a hard role.

They didn't really need, like, John C. Riley for that one. Pick a Nets. It's Soviet coach benching Trediak. I just can't even imagine what the... This is the equivalent of Mahomes throws a pick in the first quarter of the round one playoff game and Regis benches in for Chad Henny

for the rest of the game. But it was the Super Bowl. Did he ever talk about it? Was there everybody like post-game like explanation? They just panicked. They had never, nobody ever even hit them with a haymaker before. They didn't know what to do. I have a small.

small picking knit with the Lake Placid crowd, which is such a big character in the game itself, especially if you go and you watch on YouTube, it's this small hockey arena, right? Like, hands down would have been the greatest sporting event ever to go to. If you're in that building for that game. 8,500 people, that's it. 8,500, you're packed in. Everyone's rooting for America, basically. In that third period, it's just complete bedlam.

because they only had the 800 to a thousand extras. It's a lot of like close up shots or like you could tell the extras are all shoehorned into one side of the crowd. There's also a couple of extras who were like, my outfit is from 2004. Right. Seriously. So just like I don't think it captured the scale of that game, like the wide shot of just, which I think if they did this movie now, they would have said just fuck it and filled it with 9,000 extras. Parts about it is like when the speaking of like inflation. It's like Al Michaels is like the most expensive face value ticket is $67.

And that's going for up to three times outside the building. And I'm like, wow. Like like. Pickin'nits. I don't know if there's a picket's. But did they skip over the Finland game? Because I still feel like a Ruzioni calling everyone on the podium. That whole thing.

I would have milked that for like an extra 30 seconds. Brooke said to them at half time or between periods when they're down and he goes, if you lose this, you will take this to your fucking graves. Which is like almost as good as his speech. Look, the movie's two hours and 17 minutes, which is too long. This is, I mean, and this is a lot of the Disney sports movies are just too long. This is the way they do it. They're always 20 minutes too long. If you're going to cut that, the Finland stuff and the herb, Herb, Herb,

Brooks, you're going to take this to your fucking grave, and you're just going to cut stuff out for a time. You can't have another game after the Russian game, though. Well, I was going to say cut out the wife over cutting out that stuff. But yeah, I think it's the right move to end with the Russia game because that's the emotional apex of the movie. But the Finland thing was like a kind of a thing. It's almost like it was like a little mini sequel.

Maybe they could have done like an extra cut or something. Any other pick and hits? We covered everything else, right? No, I think we got everything. else. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix shows, the next category? I was against it, but then the more like we see, especially like this Lakers HBO show, I think it could be, I don't think we need it. I don't think there's any reason to do it. But I think you could remake it. I just hope they don't. Yeah, I think that you could do a couple of different things. One,

you could do combo like the Hawk documentary with Miracle and basically, hell like a cross cutting between the Russians and the Americans. You could do what happens to these guys like the next day, you know, and kind of like more the come down from a moment like this. So you start with the Russia game. Yeah. Or maybe that's season two. Season one is. And like what happens to these guys who basically have had the biggest sports moment anyone's ever experienced? Like how do you like ever live up to that and like all the different ways that they experienced it? But I think you then would have to like add something else. Like I don't know. maybe they could become like yellow jackets or something.

Like the USA team gets lost in the woods. Now that's the show. Yeah. What a team USA from 19? They crash in Minnesota. Then they have to eat each other. Unanswerable questions. The Ralph Cox sequel, I think I would have watched.

Coxie, yeah. Something with Coxie. Maybe that's part of season two of, Well, maybe it's, they crash in the plane and maybe it's Ralph Cox who becomes super successful. He didn't make it. Now his story's different. All right. Russell, where does this rank on the Kurt Russell pantheon for you?

I have six or seven, maybe five. I have escaped from New York one, of the thing two, of Tombstone three. I fucking love Tango and Cash, but there might be something wrong with me. I'm not going to defend it, but I would have that four. And I think Miracle's five for me. I don't love big trouble in Little China as much as you. Yeah, I love him in that. A couple of other ones that we didn't mention is he's really, really good in Silkwood.

Yeah. Yeah. And he's great in the Tarantino stuff later with deathproof and hateful hateful eight. I think that was one of the hardest I've ever made you laugh over the years was, it was something about something. something had happened and I was like I went home and I took a Sokwood shower It was just

slaughtered you It was like after like a 7 a M. Night New Orleans Oh my God Went home and took the Sokwood shower I have a probably A possibly unanswerable question Yeah Is this the greatest motivational speech

In sports movie history? You know I forgot to put that in Apex Mountain I'm sorry sports movie sports movies speeches. I think it's in the top three. I think it's this. I think it's Friday night lights. The forever starts like right now

or forever's about to happen. And it's Al Pacino in any given Sunday. I'd have Pacino one. The chef in Vision Quest has to be mentioned. It's so fucking good. Tells the whole story about Pele and he scores the bicycle kick

and all these fans are going nuts and he's just sitting there starts crying and then says, anyway, that's why I'm coming to your match today. Then Loudon has to, that's incredible. I'm sure there's some other ones. Do you like the Friday Night Lights one?

Yeah, that's a good one. I still feel like the Pacino is the apex, though. The Pacino is really great. There's some bad ones. There's some good bad ones, like Vanderbeek at halftime of the last varsity booze game is great. The funny thing the through line

through almost all of them is the entire movie, the coach is like, nothing matters more than winning. And then they get to this big crucial moment. And he's just like, look, as long as you play your game, I'll always love you. That's what fucking Hackman says to the Hoosiers. But he's just like, you know what? Like if you guys go out there and practice the fundamentals, then you'll be winners in my eyes. Right. I'm like, then why were you such an asshole for the last six months? What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie?

Herb's plaid pants The plaid bell bottoms That's pretty good I would take the The Arrugioni jersey Oh I got another one too The Eruzioni journey is good I would love to do

Jim Craig's post-game outfit It's like hockey pants Suspenders tank top beanie Hmm You would wear that on a Thursday. Yeah, I would just like, I would love to just be like,

if I ever become a bartender, that's what I'm going to wear. On the memorabilia thing, you know, I used to go to the sports, I still go, the Sports Collectors Convention, and we'd do photo essays from there

and we shot some videos from there. One year I went, and they had a whole Olympics thing, and I got two unripped tickets from the Lake Placid, the, the,

the U.S. Russia game. And they were expensive. They were probably like, I don't know, 800, 900,000 bucks, something like that. But I was with my friend Hershey, who would be mad that I mentioned him. And I was just like, this is like the most important sporting event of all time. How, this is crazy that I'm stealing this. Like there's, this is, this is a robbery. Now there's this ticket stub thing. I know you're not following this, but in the collector's universe, for some reason, tickets have gone through the roof. Oh, really?

And it was one of my better memorabilia purchases. Is it because there's like a, is it because there's like a fixed pool of how many tickets there possibly could have been from any event? I think people are just getting bored. And with the card market

has been so flammable left and right, the tickets seem like a safer way to kind of gravitate to because they're so much harder to find. So like Super Bowl tickets are way up. But a lot of first game stuff. A lot of like, you know, LeBron's first finals game or shit like that.

Jordan's 1998 finals, Jordan last finals ticket, stuff like that. So anyway, the Olympics tickets. That's a good one. So the jersey, though, there was a moment where the jersey stuff was really high for this team. But I think it's coming down, like the autographed photos with everybody and stuff like that. But I actually think it's a lot easier to get that stuff because, you know. You can't really wear a hockey jersey casually. Like it's a real commitment.

You can't. You're really that guy if you show up at a restaurant wearing a hockey jersey. The biggest kind of mistake they made with this stuff was the kind of the T-shirt jerseys that they have for football, not having like the T-shirt, long-sleeve hockey jerseys that aren't actual jerseys. Jerseys are sweaty, they're heavy. Like if you're in California, there's no chance. You know, you're not wearing them. Right.

Who won the movie? Kurt Russell. Yeah, it's not a debate. It's the answer. It's the answer. Yeah Producer Craig Yeah

You want to give us your take Because you weren't alive For America on Ice And you were barely alive When this movie was made That was 10 Yeah Did you see it when you were a kid?

Yeah I've seen a couple times I hadn't seen it in a while though Can you imagine if I was just like I didn't like it I'd be like an American The thing is that I think one thing we've really learned

Over the course of this podcast Is that the floor for sports movies is really high. It's like beer and peanut butter. It's like really hard to fuck this up. And when you've got a story this good. Yeah. I would say this is really up there for me for sports movies.

Remember the Titans is still my favorite. Will Patton doing the, We Will Blitz all night is probably, I'll run through a wall for that speech. Yeah, but this movie's amazing. I think the filming aspect of it is unbelievable. Like all the hits, like the real hits. Like these guys are drilling each other into the wall.

Like how do they like figure that out in pre-production or like, all right. So you are going to drill him. You're going to, you know, skate down the sideline here, get drilled to the wall. Like, I just don't really get how that works. I don't either. It's happened in football too. But it was really. Like hockey is so fluid and they need to kind of match what actually happened in the real game with what they're filming.

Yeah. Yeah. And we take a couple of liberties. Like there's a slashing penalty that was actually just like a poking thing, but that's about it. Everything else is pretty much what happened. I don't get how they do it. Yeah, it's really impressive. It flipped in the late 90s. Maybe it flipped with the program was the first time where they just had the guys beating the shit out of each other and they just filmed it. And then it just became a thing. But I know they put more thought into it than it seems like

where it's almost like professional wrestling where they plan out the spot ahead of time. And then when it happens, it looks probably worse than it is for the actors. Also, I have one more note. to add. I've been meaning to tell you guys this, the Joey Pants Award. So there needs to be like, there needs to be like a younger person version of it. Every single person that you guys bring up and you go, Noah Emrick, see you that guy? And you guys go, no, he's Noah Emmerich. Pretty much 96% of the people that you guys pick to me and everybody in their 20s, 13, 30s, it's of that guy. Yeah. So maybe we should do generational gap that guy. Yeah. Like, no, that's Noah Emrick. Like I could ask anybody I know, in their 20s.

Not a single person is going, Vats and Noah Emery. Yeah, that's a really fair point, Craig. The other thing, I was talking to my son

about this, because my wife did the thing where she's like, it's your fault. Ben hasn't watched Miracle yet. And I'm like, it's not my fault.

He doesn't, I can never get him to watch sports movies because he has so many more interesting things to do. I was thinking about my generation, and I think Chris is too,

sports movies were so incredibly important as in the pop culture, universe as like currency as things we watched over and over again and talked about. And like when I started writing my column in the, even in the late 90s for my old website, sports movies became a huge part of the column right all the way through page two because we would watch these movies like 20, 25 times, not miracle, but some of the older ones. And I don't know, like Craig, does your generation watch sports movies like that? Because I feel like it probably doesn't. Well, there are any now. So no now. But I'm saying like the older ones.

I think I was the last group because growing up, I did do like Sanlott and like, we watched like Major League and like remember the Titans. And we did do all that. But like, Ben, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, that's the thing is like I was going to ask you before we left what you would make a miracle, like another miracle about. Like, obviously you'll never have a moment that's this galvanizing. But like, is there anything a sporting event that you were like, this would look amazing if we shot this like on 35 millimeter camera. or whatever with a really good director,

a really good actor as the coach. Like, I think it would be cool. I was trying to think of like... What about Big Dick Nick, the story of the Eagles? New from Disney, Big Nick Dick. I actually think you could do a really good sports movie

about the four Red Sox Yankee games because of the characters in the Red Sox. Because you really have, like, it would actually be funny to see like who's playing David Ortiz, Mayor Ramirez, Kevin Malar.

and I think baseball, if you got real baseball guys, you know, football is probably the easiest, though, if you're trying to cheat with, like, what we like from Miracle because you could just put pads and you can cheat with the actors. Right. I mean, I think that the Nova Georgetown game would be really interesting, maybe even more as like a miniseries than it would be as a movie just because of all the stuff that was happening around that. And also just the fact that Nova basically was perfect in that game, like you had to play perfectly to beat Georgetown. Trying to think of like, you're going to get your wish with this with the Lakers series on HBO. Right. Because this is,

they go for it and everything. Yeah. Yeah. No, but they go for it with the basketball. Like they, this is not like glossing over. Yeah,

I feel like it's so funny like watching these sports movies with my son now because he's like, these are great. Why haven't we watched these? It was like, I've been trying to get you to watch these since you were like four years old and you wanted no part of it because freaking Max and Ruby was on and then TikTok or whatever.

But yeah, these still, like, Rudy's 30 years old. Rudy still works. Slapshot is still good. Rocky 3 is, like, still unassailably good. Does he like Hoosiers? Oh, yeah. All of them are really, like, you go to the top echelon, and then the ones like the replacements and hardball, like that from that era,

all those are really watchable, varsity blues. I think they all still hold up. Really good stuff. All right. Well, we'll call it a day on that. We have a big movie coming next week. won't say what. It's a big one. It's one of the, it's from the A-list movies list that people text us about and DM us about and tweet us about and say like, how have you not done this movie yet?

Well, we're doing one of those. So everybody can hold off. Settle down. This podcast was produced back Craig Coral back. Again, Craig. Again! We'll see you next week.