Ladies and gentlemen of the blog universe, I’m pleased to announce that I’ll finally be resuming the project that I started about analyzing the original Miracle on Ice movie, which I began approximately a century ago. For those of you (like me) who might have forgotten that this undertaking even existed back in the distant past when dinosaurs were still roaming the planet, I’m delighted to not-so-subtly remind you that I left off right before the pre-Olympic game against the Soviets at Madison Square Garden.
This segment begins with the famous skyline of New York City, which is always kind of depressing for me to see because it reminds me of how that classic image was forever marred by homicidal terrorists (who are my generation’s version of Communists, basically). Then the camera zooms in on Madison Square Garden’s billboard, which proclaims in neon lights that there’s the USA v.s. USSR hockey preview at 7:30 PM.
Along the sidewalk, there is a group of angry folk who apparently have nothing better to do with their wretched existences than wave around signs blaring messages about how Russia should leave Afghanistan alone.
Obviously, these politically charged people harbor under the delusion that guys like Valeria Kharmalov were calling the shots for Soviet policy. That’s about as hysterical as in the modern age when hockey fans and people in general actually cared about Pavel Datsyuk’s and Alex Ovechkin’s opinions about gay propaganda policies in Sochi. They’re athletes, not politicians, people. I don’t want to listen to them talk about matters of state; I just want to watch them dangle goalies out of jockstraps and score a million goals. Politics are boring. That’s why I never want to listen to an interview where Crosby discusses his feelings about abortion or Stamkos outlines his views on the madhouse that is the Middle East.
In short, I just wish the sign-waving idiots outside Madison Square Garden would concuss themselves with their placards and leave the rest of us normal people who don’t give a hoot about politics alone. Then the world would be a better place.
A dude I believe is Kaminsky and another agent exit a taxi, observing, “Would you look at this? Sometimes it isn’t a sport or a business. It’s an international incident.”
It’s good to see that one of the characters in the movie shares my jaded perspective on politics and all those who march around waving signs with personal political views outside entertainment venues. This is why you’re better off going to the Prudential Center to watch the Devils than to Madison Square Garden to watch the Rangers. Not only is the arena better, but there are a lot less idiots waving political signs out front. Heck, I’ve never seen an idiot waving a political sign outside the front of the Prudential Center, so there you go.
Moving along with the show (such as it is), the other agent asks, “What would you give to be part of our team tonight? To be out on the ice when the Russians skate out?”
Since the Red Army and US Olympic team match-up was billed as a David-Goliath game, I think that’s kind of like asking a resident of Boston back in the 1770’s what he would have given to be in the line of fire during the Boston Massacure. I mean the answer is clearly:
The other guy, plainly lying through his teeth, answers “a lot, a lot.” As Kaminsky and his companion begin to make their way through the sign-waving nuts, a third agent (the one whom I noticed earlier resembles an Oompa Loompa) hops out of a taxi, hollering Kaminsky’s name to get his attention.
The Oompa Loompa man after dashing up to his fellow agents inquires how their boys are doing and is told that they are doing just fine. I guess “fine” is at the extreme low end of the emotional spectrum now.
Ramping his obnoxious powers up to maximum, the Oompa Loompa man comments, “Well, I guess this is what Brooks was gambling on.” When one of his agent companions correctly points out that this isn’t Lake Placid, the undeterred Oompa Loompa man continues with pure pompousness, “The teams are the same, George. What do you say we meet afterwards? Loser buys the drinks.”
This is an example of the sort of unfair spots gambling that I just can’t condone, since it’s simply unjust to have the person who is totally depressed after seeing his team lose buy the drinks. It should be the person whose team won who funds the drinking, so that everyone feels like a winner, and the poor soul who just had to watch their team stink can take a sip and proclaim:
The Oompa Loompa cackles to himself like the Wicked Witch of the West before the scene mercifully changes to the US Olympic team streaming onto the ice as the announcer declares, “The US Olympic team coming out onto the ice at Madison Square Garden for a very important game tonight against the USSR, the final match-up before next week’s Olympics begins at Lake Placid, and this is for the most part a team of college kids against a team that demolished NHL All-Stars a year ago this week at the Garden.” Well, at the time of the Lake Placid Olympics Slava Fetisov was only like twenty-two and the average age for the US Olympic team was twenty-two so that makes this match-up totally even, right? I mean:
The announcer explains that there will be an opening face-off at center ice between Neal Broten and Valeri Kharmalov. Since in real life it was actually Mark Johnson who took the opening face-off against Kharmalov, I can’t help but wonder why the director felt it was necessary to needlessly alter this detail to make this movie just a little less historically accurate. Whatever. It gives me an excuse to say hello to Neal.
Neal manages to win the face-off and the US carries the puck into the Soviet zone, and what follows is just a bunch of slow skating and excruciatingly bad passing by the actors that makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Watching these actors play hockey looks like what I imagine a herd of Bambis would resemble if forced to skate and pass a puck around for the first time. (For the record, doing this to deer is not recommended, since it probably constitutes animal cruelty.) This movie must have been on such a shoe-string budget that they couldn’t afford to hire actors who had ever even seen a person skate.
The US team turns the puck over to the Soviets, and then the audience has to endure the torture that is watching the actors in this film butcher the artistic and skilled hockey that the Red Army team was renowned for, which makes me feel sick to my stomach, so:
To try to convey why I’m so nauseous, I’ll just explain that Pavel Datsyuk, who is basically pure poetry in motion when he plays hockey, is probably the contemporary Russian who best depicts the traditional Soviet style of play. Lots of slick passing. Smooth skating. Lovely stick handling around entire NHL teams. An uncanny ability to predict what will happen next in a game. An understanding of how to navigate his own zone. So basically by turning Kharmalov into Bambi on skates, what the director did was even worse than having Pavel Datsyuk, the man who splits defenses like this:
played in a movie by this dude who can’t even play keep-away with Datsyuk:
because at least that guy played college hockey. So, yeah, next time Valeri Kharmalov appears in a film can we not insult his memory by having some Pee Wee play him? Thanks.
The actor playing Valeri Kharmalov manages to bumble his way through a series of passes that results in a goal where Guttenberg makes a pathetic save attempt that resembles an interpretive chicken dance. It’s like he was thinking:
Over at the bench, Herb paces and is probably internally screaming:
The camera then flashes to the scoreboard, which kind of looks like it was constructed with cardboard by a bunch of third graders for a book report project, so viewers have visual confirmation that the Soviets are indeed up 1-0.
After the US team finally regains control of the puck, they have a breakaway attempt, which Tretiak deflects with a kick save that looks like he’s either fall-down drunk or else has simply never blocked a hockey puck before. Clearly the director just drugged and dragged in some random guy of the street to play Tretiak, Hall of Fame goaltender. Having seen this sad sequence of Hollywood hockey ineptitude, I can only mutter:
There is more bungling with the puck, mainly by the actors playing the Soviets, and then Guttenberg makes a pathetic lunge to try to stop the puck before it finds the back of his net, giving the Soviets a two goal lead. Guttenberg in goal is like:
More insult to the game of hockey follows, interspersed with Herb barking at his players from the bench to “watch the gaps; watch the gaps,” and then Krutov manages to score basically from the blue line. Since his team is making zero effort on offense or defense, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim Craig was mentally checking out of this game, remarking mentally:
Following the camera flashing to the cardboard scoreboard to beat into the audience’s collective brains that the Soviets are up 3-0, the commentator states some gibberish about the US needing to prevent this game from becoming a rout. What a fool. If a hockey game is 3-0 and the first period is nowhere close to over, it’s already a rout. That was true even during the ‘80s when scoring was ridiculously inflated compared to the modern era where players are supposed to at least look like they’re trying to be defensively responsible rather than just play fire wagon hockey.
Predictably, the Soviets score another goal, and, forgetting that as captain he should probably pretend to be at least a little bit supportive of his teammate, Rizzo, as the crowd breaks into boos, skates up to Jim and asks in the breathless tone of a sugar-high toddler, “Man, did you see that goal?” Watching this unfold, I wonder for the millionth time:
Given that Rizzo has been doing a disappearing act all night, Jim would probably be one-hundred percent justified punching him square in the jaw, or else trolling him next time he made a save by exclaiming:
Electing to be a bit more subtle, Jim replies witheringly, “Yeah, I was there. Remember?” You tell him, Jimmy. That’s the spirit. Teach your captain some manners.
Totally not picking up how rude he is being, Rizzo punches Jimmy in the shoulder, responding, “I’m sorry, Jimmy, but class is class.” Basically, Rizzo is saying:
Only he is completely wrong, since he just showed all the social grace of a bull raging around a china shop.
Over at the bench, Herb calls out a line change, and the Coneheads climb onto the ice. Then Herb demands if Rizzo has gotten all the Russian autographs that he wanted. Rizzo, continuing to be an idiot, wants to know if Herb is talking to him. Herb confirms that he is indeed talking to Mike, the team captain. Perhaps concussion tests should be run on Rizzo. He seems a bit mentally impaired right now.
The pathetic excuse of a hockey game carries on, and when the guy who plays Neal makes a terrible drop pass, there is a comically slow breakaway by the Soviets, who unsurprisingly score high on Craig’s glove side. This game for the US team is the equivalent of this:
There is more booing by the crowd and flashing to the cardboard cutout scoreboard, and then Rizzo, the stupid captain, manages to score, so the tally is slightly less lopsided. Maybe if he had bothered to show up earlier in the game it wouldn’t have been such a rout, but he was probably too busy practicing insults he could hurl at his goalie to show up to the game on time.
Any momentum the US might have gained by Rizzo’s goal is squashed when the Soviets tally again. Then the game goes from bad to worse when Jack O’Callahan, after hitting a Soviet player against the boards, is rammed from behind by another Soviet player, and crumbles to the ice. There is a dramatic swell of music as he is carried from the ice, and readers will just have to wait until next time to hear what damage has been wrought on poor OC.
glimpsesfromanivorytower 