Things You Didn't Know About Michael Mantenuto

Mantenuto's role in Miracle was a natural one: he'd been wearing ice skates since he could walk. That love of ice hockey came from his father, Ed, whose own story is one of incredible strength and determination.

A long-time hockey coach and assistant principal for Holliston High School, the elder Mantenuto suffered a major stroke in the 1993. His road to recovery was a long one, as the stroke left him without the ability to speak or walk. It wasn't until three years after his stroke that he regained the ability to speak, and after leaving his job he worked numerous odd jobs through his rehabilitation. When he was interviewed by Boston.com in 2004 — only a few weeks after returning from a trip to Hollywood to watch his son walk the red carpet — he talked a bit about how he raised his son and instilled some of the same values that had helped him through his health scare. "I'm tough, but I'm fair," he said. "I was like that as a hockey coach, and I'm like that as a dad."

They spoke to Mantenuto, too, and it was clear that his entire youth had been colored by his father's struggles. Just 12 years old when the stroke happened, it's something he says he was only truly able to understand later. "I am starting to realize more and more now what an ordeal it was for my whole family," he said. "I was running from it for a long time. It was difficult to see my father, who I looked up to as a hero, dealing with some of the things he did."

While most people recognize him from Miracle, those same people might be wondering just what happened to his dream of becoming an actor. Two years after scoring a part in the 2008 Matthew McConaughey comedy Surfer, Dude, his career went in a different direction and he enlisted in the US military.

Mantenuto didn't just enlist, he went on to be assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group, and to go through a program called SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape). He was an Army Special Forces K-9 handler, as well. After Mantenuto's death, official statements were released from his commanding officers at Fort Bragg, and People gives us a run-down of just how incredible his military background was, according to the statement. His awards included an Army Commendation Medal, an Army Achievement Medal with two Oak Leaf Clusters, the Global War on Terror Service Medal, National Defense Service Member, a Good Conduct Medal with two knots, and an Army Service Ribbon.

Tributes from his colleagues flooded social media after his death, including one comment from US Army Specialist Samantha Brinegar. "In life, you find those that inspire you and mentor you," she wrote on Facebook (via People). "SSG Mike Mantenuto was not only that for me but for my team."

After his death, Mantenuto's friend Wendy Wilson-Heid spoke to The Daily Mail about the generous, caring soul she had first met at the Cedar Hills Hospital in Portland, Oregon, then later knew through a veterans' support group they both belonged to and worked with. According to her, he never stopped loving acting, but vaguely referred to demons that continued to haunt him. After they met, they co-founded the support group for those veterans fighting the same fight, and she denied reports that something overseas had changed him, even though she did reveal he had left the K-9 unit he had loved. "I didn't get into it with him about why that had happened," she said. "He just said, 'I need to get my life together and I couldn't do it by doing that.'"

Mantenuto's colleagues also confirmed that he had reached out to countless people who were suffering through the same issues he was, and that he had been speaking extensively at Fort Lewis, Washington. One of the people who had attended his classes was Matthew Martell, who also spoke with The Daily Mail. He had nothing but good things to say about Mantenuto, saying that he would put aside his own issues if it meant helping others. "He really tried his best to ensure that if the soldiers beneath us or anyone had issues to do with anything, they would know what they needed to do to get help. He was an advocate for people seeking counselling. [...] When he taught [his counseling classes], he was very raw, very real, but so passionate because of what he had been through in his life. He didn't want to see anybody else fall into the traps that he did."

The hockey player that Mantenuto found fame playing was Jack O'Callahan, a Boston-born Irishman who played for Boston University before heading to the Chicago Blackhawks and later the New Jersey Devils. He's still most famous for the events depicted in Miracle — especially his determination in overcoming a knee injury to skate in that final, epic game of the 1980 Olympics — and in 2007, he spoke to Irish America about not only that game, but the movie.

"They cast Michael Mantenuto, an Italian guy, in my role," O'Callahan told them, "and an Irish guy, Patrick O'Brien Dempsey as [team captain] Mike Eruzione. Mike and I still both laugh about that. I think all the actors did great and they were really into it, as most had grown up as hockey players and knew our story."

O'Callahan also praised the accuracy of the film, and it's no coincidence that the movie got it right — he consulted on the project, and spent hours talking about just what happened and how they were going to be able to do the epic win the most justice. He noted, though, that there was one scene that definitely didn't happen in real life, the fight between Mantenuto's version of O'Callahan and the Minnesota-born Rob McClanahan. "Robby was much too smart to start a fight with an Irish guy from Charlestown," he joked.