The "Miracle" movie unreveals the dramatic story of how the United States ice ho ckey team defeated

the then world-champion Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics. Th e arena-size tribal chant ''USA! USA! USA!'' has become a yahoo signature grunt at world sporting events; in attempting to cut through the cockiness and return to the mantra's roots of optimism, ''Miracle'' alloys sports glory with a flag-w aving halftime show. ''Miracle'' is organized around a man's middle-aged passion, that of Minnesota h ockey coach Herb Brooks - whose own Olympic hopes were thwarted when he played f or the hockey team in 1960 -- for shaping an American squad (average age: 22) in to players tough enough to hold their own against the invincible Soviets. ''You' re chasing after something you didn't get -- that you may never get,'' Herb's wi fe (Patricia Clarkson) explains to her husband in one of the many directional de clarations supplied in the first produced feature screenplay by Eric Guggenheim. (Other guideposts: ''That kid doesn't have a shot in hell of making this team,' ' spoken before the kid makes the team; and ''Craig's game has been off since hi s mom died,'' spoken in preparation for Jim Craig's astounding goalie work in th e big game.) ''Miracle'' -- the title taken from TV announcer Al Michaels' famous game-clinch ing cheer, ''Do you believe in miracles? Yes!'' -- wins not when it exhorts by w ord but when it shows by action. And some of the most riveting action takes plac e when Coach Brooks is alone, quiet. Russell is another one of our ''USA! USA! U SA!''-bred crop of handsome man-not-boy actors who (like Alec Baldwin and Dennis Quaid) is finding exciting new performance freedom in middle age. Outfitted in 1970s hair, Gerald Ford-era plaid pants, and a dandy Minnesotan accent, he's won derfully compelling as a tough, taciturn, driven leader. ''Miracle'''s most conc rete achievement is in showing how, step by demanding step, Brooks was able to t ransform 20 young men used to playing as stellar individuals -- the American way -- into an unintimidate-able, egoless team, i.e., the Soviet way. ''Who do you play for?'' Brooks says, challenging athlete after athlete until it dawns on one of them, during a marathon training session, that their various school teams ar e not the unifying answer he's after. ''Miracle'' is shot in a palette of red, white, blue, and hostage-crisis gray ri ght down to the colors of the clouds and the neckties; only Clarkson and Russell get to deviate in tones of beige and powder blue, their relationship carefully tended with contemporary sensitivity to the importance of wives. The attractive young men who make up Team USA, meanwhile, are their own best advertisements for phys ed, nearly all of them hockey players first and actors...as of now. (Eddie Cahill, cast as goalie Jim Craig, had a recurring role on ''Friends.'') Their u nstudied openness contrasts pointedly with Russell's tight concentration, as wel l as with energetic action sequences of skates and sticks on ice. What the U.S. ice hockey team achieved was magnificent, of course, on its own at hletic terms; so was Seabiscuit's race against War Admiral. But the home crowd's sis-boom-bah frenzy has taken on new shadings in the decades since both those e vents. ''Miracle'' has got a good offensive game as an inspirational how-to abou t team building; it's in the reassuring defense of American can-do-ism that the