Awesome / Miracle

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• Yeah, everyone knows how it ends. If one didn't know about the real game, then the cover/movie title gives it away. But that doesn't prevent the Foregone Conclusion from being awesome in the most awesome of ways. Hell, many people who saw the original real-life game were cheering as passionately as they did back in the day, because that's how closely they replicated the experience.
  • The Death Glare's given to the Soviets midway through the third period, after the Americans have taken their 4-3 lead. Skating into their face-off positions, they're radiating pure intensity (if not hostility), enough that the Soviets have the slightest flickers of hesitation; the complete opposite of their first face-off before the Olympics, showing how far they've come.
• The iconic Al Michaels call at the end of the Soviet game, left untouched from the original broadcast. Michaels said there was no way he could ever replicate the emotion from that moment, and it's damn-near impossible for anyone to disagree with this.
  ''Eleven seconds, you've got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk, five seconds left in the game! DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? YES!!"
• The Rousing Speech before the Soviet game, which is also Truth in Television.
  • Not depicted in the film was Herb Brooks' short-but-sweet pep talk to the team before the third period of the gold medal game against Finland. "If you lose this game, you'll take it with you to your fucking graves." Brooks paused, took a few steps, and turned to face the team again. "Your fucking graves."
• The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue is set to Aerosmith's "Dream On".
  • The memorial at the end of it to the real Herb Brooks, who was killed in a car accident shortly after filming wrapped: "He never saw it. He lived it."
• After the horrible exhibition game, Brooks keeps the team at the arena, punishing them with endless drills, until one of them finally understands what Brooks was trying to do all along (make them realize they have to play as a team), answering Brooks' Armor-Piercing Question:
  Mike Eruzione: Mike Eruzione! Winthrop, Massachusetts!
  Herb Brooks: Who do you play for?
  Mike Eruzione: I play for... the United States of America!
  [beat]
  Herb Brooks: That's all, gentlemen.
  • During said drills, Herb makes it clear to the players that they need to focus more on the game and playing as a team.
    Herb Brooks: When you pull on that jersey, you represent yourself AND your team mates, AND THE NAME ON THE FRONT IS A HELL OF A LOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE ONE ON THE BACK. GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEADS!
  • Not to mention, all those Herbies paid off. Al Michaels mentions during the third period that no team had ever out-skated the Soviets in the third period. "The legs feed the wolves", indeed.
• This speech from Herb as he explains his plan for playing against the Soviets:
  Herb Brooks: Look, I could give you a load of crap about how you're a better team than they are but that's exactly what it would be, and everyone in this room knows what people are saying about our chances. I know it, you know it. But I also know there is a way to stay with this team. You DON'T defend them, you ATTACK them. You take their game and you SHOVE it right back in their face. The team that is finally willing to do this is the team that has a chance to put them down. NHL won't change their game, we will. The rest of the world is afraid of them. Boys, we won't be. No one has ever worked hard enough to skate with the Soviet team for an entire game. Gentlemen, we ARE going to work hard enough.
• As depicted in the film, only the team captains would stand on the podium for the medal ceremony. After the medals were awarded, team captain Mike Eruzione gestured toward the rest of the team, and the entire team took the podium. Afterwards, the Olympic Committee got rid of the podiums for hockey, allowing all team members to be represented equally.
• As the clock ticks down towards the final minute of the game, and as the crowd becomes even more frenzied, Herb Brooks looks over at the Russian coach — a man who is considered the greatest hockey coach on the planet at the time — and says this immortal line to his assistant coach.
  Brooks: He doesn't know what to do!
  • The Awesomeness comes not from what Tikhonov isn't doing — pulling your goalie to get an extra skater on the ice to get the tying goal is something even small children know how to do — but from the fact that the Soviets are so rarely put in that position, Tikhonov isn't even bothering with an otherwise-standard move.
    • According to several players from the 1980 Soviet team, they didn't do it because they had never even practiced it, so unrealistic was the situation that they thought they would never even need to.
• A Real Life awesome moment for the actual team. When the United States hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, 1980 team captain Mike Eruzione was picked to light the Olympic Flame. Instead, Eruzione calls up all the members of the 1980 team. In a re-enactment of the original team storming the podium, the entire 1980 U.S. hockey team grabs a part of the torch and lights the flame.

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