OHAI EVREE1!!!111one one
Yep, here comes another MOVIEFOODTIVITY BIRTHDAYGANZA post. And for this one, we watched a sports movie. I really lurve sports movies. Especially ones about scrappy underdogs that overcome odds and what not. And also ones called Varsity Blues.
Sports are big in the Goody house. Both boys have played sports since they were like old enough to walk. Owen is now full-on soccer while Myles is all about the hockey. And we watch sports pretty much all year round. Football Sundays are a particularly important tradition among us and our friends and we have been known to have sports running on multiple TVs within line of vision when games have overlapped.
And hockey is no exception. As I said, Myles is now in the midst of tryouts for his upcoming third hockey season. But beyond that, we are HUGE Bruins fans to the point where Owen can tell you the number of pretty much any player on the team. And this doesn’t even come close to accounting for the hours spent playing NHL on our PS4 OR the fact that I am a level 28 wizard with maximum charisma in Dungeons & Dragons.
Wait….um…hey, look a picture of Myles and Owen.
So for this night, we watched Miracle. Kurt Russell’s finest film since the masterpiece Overboard in which he convinces an amnesiac woman she is his wife and mother to his children and forces her into indentured servitude. And then….love. According to my 6th grade journal, this was like my favorite movie. But to be fair, this was probably due more to the kid that talked like Pee-Wee Herman than the whole “felony? More like love” message of the film. Also, Goldie Hawn’s butt.
Oh sorry…anyways, yeah. Miracle. It was mainly the four of us though my Mom did make a cameo appearance to eat a kebab wrap and go to Tewksbury. But we will get to that later.
The food
For the food here, we decided to go concession stand and ordered cheeseburgers, onion rings and fries from a place down the street. Well and my Mom ordered a kebab wrap. I wish I could say it was a Ke-Bob Suter Wrap in honor of defenseman Bob Suter from the 1980 US Hockey team. But then I would be lying. And if I lie, my nose will grow. Like the little wooden boy named Pinnochio.
And you all know how the story go.
The plan was also to have soft pretzels and popcorn but we just had so many activities going on, we just ran out of time. Activities=bomb.
The activity
So yeah, like mentioned…we had a couple activities for this one. To start, we played some street hockey. It was fun. In the beginning at least. I ended the game by downing a whole box of Skittles to fight what felt like low blood sugar while Owen yelled at me for not extending the last game to 6 points. Competition is alive and well at the Goodreau house.
And then, after the movie, we drove out to Tewksbury (again with me mom) to watch Myles play in his hockey game. The Medford Mustangs put up a good game and almost tied things up in the last few seconds but fell just short and lost 3-4. And Nickie almost had like 4 heart attacks watching Myles on the ice. Needless to say, she doesn’t make it to many games.
The movie
The movie Miracle brings to the table so much of what makes up a lot of what we expect from a good deal of Disney films. It is, at its heart, the story of an underdog overcoming what seem like insurmountable odds to emerge a champion. Everyone loves an underdog, right? Well except for that one movie. About Underdog. Called Underdog.
But yeah, this movie is ALL underdog story. And the best part is that it’s true. The 1980 US Men’s Hockey team still stands atop most “best moments in sports” lists. When the US team beat the Soviet Union at the games in Lake Placid that year, they not only bested a favorite, they made the whole world stop and watch them do it. This was a team of boys. A team of college players from Minnesota and Boston playing the top players in the world from the Soviet Union. This Soviet Union team won the gold in ’64, ’68, ’72 and ’76. And during that time, they went 27-1-1 and outscored their opposition 175-44. 175-44. They were a force to be sure. In 1979, they beat the NHL All-Star team and went 5-3-1 against NHL teams prior to the Olympics. Hell, they even beat this very team in an exhibition game 13 days before this game.
And it goes even beyond the numbers. The social backdrop against which this game was playing was the type that if this were a fictional story, you would probably call it a bit heavy-handed or overdone. The US was in a state of…eh…uncertainty. Yes, of course, we were in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union but even beyond that, America was down. The summer prior was the summer when Jimmy Carter gave his infamous “crisis of confidence” speech (which btw is a pretty great speech despite how history has treated it), the US was essentially in between recessions and facing rising inflation. Let’s just say…things were bad.
And along comes this. This “miracle” encapsulating so much. From the macro global and societal impact to the micro of its unlikely hero, Mike Eruzione. This movie and the events that inspired it are so incredibly awesome that it’s almost like Disney really didn’t have to do much to make this as awesome as it is. They pretty much just could have just replayed the game and it still would have left me with chills. Of course they didn’t…they went and put together a great cast and superb storytelling to build up to its epic finale.
And we all knew how it would end. But it doesn’t matter. Because it STILL gives me chills. And it inspires me. Because what this game means is that there is always a chance. There is always hope. As Brooks said himself, “If we played ‘em 10 times, they might win nine. But not this game. Not tonight.” There is always a chance. Even when things look impossible. They aren’t. It might take some grit, and determination…and luck. But Al Michaels said at the end of it all…”Do you believe in miracles?” And it’s like…after seeing this…how can you not? And more importantly, why wouldn’t you want to?
WeHeartDisney 