Miracle

As I've mentioned before, it's the end of the year, so I've had to come up with some new "strategery" to keep the sanity.  My Advanced Placement US History class has taken their exam, and as a reward, we are watching movies with a distinct historical bent to them. 

Like Miracle, one of my favorite movies. Now, it doesn't rank up there with Slapshot, the greatest hockey movie I've ever seen, but it is quite better than Mighty Ducks 3. It's vintage Disney in that one scene, the boys are talking to Coach Brooks about adding another player to the team and they say, "But we're family." Is there a Disney movie that doesn't have that as a theme somewhere? 

So, how can I justify watching this movie? Isn't it about sports? Yes, I say, but I can counter that with two things: Sports is a metaphor for war; The struggle between the hockey teams of the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics was yet another facet of the Cold War struggle. 

And so one of my students, I'll call him.... Dave. Dave was watching it, saw the goalie doing his butterfly, and said, "I can do that!" before banging his knee on the floor. But he came up with a wicked awesome dance and lyrics. 

And now he knows what a puck is. I'm so proud.