Miracle Speech

Great moments are born from great opportunity.
And that’s what you have here tonight, boys.
That’s what you’ve earned here, tonight.
One game.
If we played ’em ten times, they might win nine.
But not this game. Not tonight.
Tonight, we skate with ’em.
Tonight, we stay with ’em, and we shut them down because we can!
Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world.
You were born to be hockey players — every one of ya.
And you were meant to be here tonight.
This is your time.
Their time — is done. It’s over.
I’m sick and tired of hearin’ about what a great hockey team the Soviets have.
Screw ’em!
This is your time!!
Now go out there and take it!

As you can see from the video and the actual speech he said, Brooks used a lot of emotion. He used it because he needed it. He needed to get every single player ready to play like a coach should. His goal was to try to appeal excitement when talking to their team before a game because they want their team to get mentally engaged. Half way through his pre-game speech, Brooks says, “Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world.” He wants them to know that he is proud and that they should be proud of themselves for getting here. Through it all he knows that this team has done the impossible and he wants his players to know that too. The next thing Brooks says is, “You were born to be hockey players, every one of you.” Not only does this appeal once again to the hockey player’s emotions, but it serves as a confidence booster. He is showing that they all deserve to be here, that they have made it through try outs, exhibition games, practices, conditioning and playing some of the greatest teams in the world, and this is their moment. He lays it all out on the line and says, “One game.” He is trying to get in their minds that all they need to focus on is winning that game and doing the things it will take to get them ahead on the scoreboard after the next 60 minutes. Another thing Coach Brooks does well is the use of the pauses after most, if not everything he says. He uses these pauses to make eye contact with his players to make sure that they know he is speaking to them specifically. He wants them as a team as one, and up to this point they have. In his final line of the speech, Brooks says, “Now let’s go out there and take it!” This is the ending of his speech and it needs to be perfect. Just a simple line that states the obvious but when Brooks says it, the emotion throughout the locker room goes from silent to loud and ready hockey players, proving that his speech was an effective one.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

The big game between the United States and the Soviet Union occurred the night of February 22, 1980. The game had sold out with thousands of American fans who screamed the famous chant, “U.S.A! U.S.A!” throughout the game, which is how the chant originated. Before the game, Herb Brooks said how he is, “Sick and tired of hearin’ about what a great hockey team the Soviets have.” Much of this rivalry comes from him being in the 1960’s Olympic Games where the Americans got the gold medal; however, Brook’s was cut the week before that game. When the Americans went out there the crowd went crazy. There was a full house there all cheering on the team that seemed like there was no hope for a victory. The Soviets scored first in this game, scoring only a few minutes into the first period, but the Americans were quick to score, with Buzz Schneider scoring their first goal. After the Soviets scored again, Mark Johnson scored at the buzzer of the first period for a 2-2 tie, and this goal prompted the Soviet coach to replace his goalie, Vladislov Tretiak (considered to be the best goalie in the world) with his backup, Vladimir Myshkin. The Soviet Union scored once in the second period, and going into the third and final period, the Soviets led by one goal. The United States scored twice in the first ten minutes of the period with goals from Mark Johnson and Mike Eurozione to take a 4-3 lead. There were still ten minutes in the game, and goalie Jim Craig made numerous saves from Soviet shots during this time, and the United States won this game 4-3. With only five seconds remaining, American broadcaster Al Micheals made the famous quote, “Do you believe in Miracles…Yes!” The American’s had done it. Brook’s had done it. Many of the people who put him as head coach doubted him but he persevered and brought this team all the way to the gold medal match. The United States went on to win the gold medal two days later by defeating Finland 4-2.

“Great Moments are Born from Great Opportunity”

In Brook’s speech before the game he picked every word carefully. He states, “Great moments are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight.” He says this because he wants them to know that he’s proud of them, and that America’s proud of them. They took being the underdog in this tournament and turned it around and did the impossible. They earned it and he wanted them to know it. He also stresses in the speech that its “one game.” This is important because he wants to get in their minds that this could be their one and only shot at a gold medal. He wants them to put it all on the line and do the best they can to beat the great Soviet team. One of the great things he does during the speech is use a lot of emotion and emotional appeal to his players. He uses pauses and silence as a time for the players to think and envision how important this game is and how they have the ability to win it. He states, “Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world,” and that they were born to be hockey players. He uses these lines to strike emotion and not only that to give them the confidence they need to go out there and play hard. Finally he keeps repeating the phrase that “This is your time.” This is a confidence booster to show that they can do this, and they should not be taken lightly by the Soviets. It also has another meaning about how this is America’s time. Throughout the fighting and rivalry because of the Cold War, the American’s wanted to upset the best team in hockey to prove that the Soviet Union could be beaten, and beaten they were.

Motivation

Motivation was a big factor in the speech that Brooks gave. During the movie scene of Miracle he walks in and everything’s silent. He delivered it with many pauses to allow the players to think about what he was saying and really feel how big of an opportunity this was. Brooks was a very dedicated man and even assured the U.S. team at least a bronze medal the year before the Olympics even started. He had an abnormal way of doing things with his players but it was very effective. Brooks knew that he did not have the most talented team in the world, but he was going to make sure they were the fastest and most conditioned. He also loved the idea of the team coming together as one, and to do this he tried to unite them in many different ways, the most effective one was uniting them against him. Brooks was a very smart man; he knew what it took to win because he had been in the Olympic Games before, in 1960, with his assistant coach Craig Patrick. He wanted players with discipline that could work hard. He knew very well how good the competition was going to be in the Olympics so he wanted to get a lot of practice in. Before the Olympics even started, Brooks had scheduled close to 60 exhibition games for the team to play. Bottom line, he was motivated and he wanted his team to be motivated. In this game especially he needed to pump up his players after they had already suffered a loss to the USSR a few weeks prior. During the speech he states, “Tonight, we skate with ’em. Tonight, we stay with ’em, and we shut them down because we can!” He’s saying that they’re just as good as them, that they can do it. He stresses the fact that they can keep up with the competition because of how hard they worked all year to be in great shape. The way he inspired them to keep with it and work hard just goes to show that hard work can beat talent any day.

Miracle on Ice

Herb Brooks was the 1980 United States Olympic hockey coach who probably will go down as one of the best coaches ever. As portrayed in the movie Miracle (2004) Brooks takes coaching very differently but is effective in the way he does it. Most importantly, he is a very inspirational person and we can see this in his pregame speech against the USSR. The 1980 Olympics was not just another competition of who could get the most gold medals, it was much more than that. It was during the Cold War era, a time where tensions were high between the US and USSR. The president at that time, Jimmy Carter, was even considering boycotting the Olympic Games, however, that didn’t happen. In ice hockey, the USSR was a machine. Hockey was their life, and it was their job to win games. They had won gold medals the past four years in the Olympics, and to beat them was one hell of a feat. Team USA on the other hand was labeled the underdogs in the games, and was not expected to come close to winning at all. This is back in the day where NHL stars couldn’t be used in the Olympics, so most of the players were still in college and none were over 25. The Olympic tournament was a round robin with the best four teams advancing to the medal round. These teams included the Soviet Union, Finland, Sweden, and the United States. The US team, under coach Herb Brooks did what seemed like the impossible. However, it was not over yet and team USA’s first game was against the Soviet Union. In his speech before the game, Herb Brooks had to motivate his player’s big time. He had to choose every word carefully because being such a young team and the pressure that they had upon them, the nerves were high. During the speech Herb kept repeating that “This is your time” trying to get the players to have a mindset that they can win this game. He also states that “Their time is done” to show that it was their game to lose. However, given the background and history between the United States and the Soviet Union, this has a deeper meaning. The Cold War had been raging on for decades, and the competition between these two countries was huge. Knowing about how much better the Soviets were was a scary thing. They even had already defeated the American team before the Olympics started, 10-3. This was a time during the Cold War period where things were looking glim for the Americans. We were facing many problems such as “an ugly end to the Vietnam War, the demoralizing Watergate spectacle, rampant inflation, unemployment and an energy crisis” according to About.com. Not only that but the Soviets had just invaded Afghanistan, and there was US hostages in Iran. This game was a big one and “it gave the country a reason to feel good again.” So when Brooks referred to it as their time, he meant it. It was their time to bring home the win, their time to make Americans proud and finally beat the greatest hockey team of their time. Like he said, the Soviets time was over.