- After the loss of his best friend on Christmas Eve, Bobby goes out onto the lake and makes a shocking discovery. When the land is bought, Bobby must rally the town to save it.
- After suffering the loss of his best friend Charlie on Christmas Eve, sixteen year old Bobby Whiteside ventures out onto the lake where they played countless games of winter hockey. Upon shoveling the ice surface he makes a shocking discovery --- a magic, perfectly groomed hockey rink that appears only at night and only in his presence. When a local construction company purchases the land for development, Bobby must join forces with his high school crush, rally the town, and play one last game on the night pond --- with an old friend.
- Bobby Whiteside hates Christmas. This is explained in one scene where he lists terrible events that happened to him at Christmas. The one we hear the most about to begin with is the loss of his best friend Charlie. This must have happened the previous year because Charlie's mother finds the present Charlie was going to give Bobby in storage, where it has been for quite some time as Charlie's parents have had a hard time with what happened. Charlie's father Richard runs the store that supplies the school's hockey team, but there are clues he may have spent the night there a lot, and Charlie's room has not changed in a year.
Also, Bobby's father Cole, a former semi-pro hockey player, left nine years ago at Christmas when Bobby was about nine. Now, his older brother Jeremy has postponed college to be the "man of the house". He also has a younger sister Roxie who was born around the time their dad left. Bobby's mother Sarah is a teacher at the high school.
Bobby wants to leave this small town. It's not clear how small it is. There is a large hockey arena nearby where he attends a game. There is a mall nearby where the Santa Claus is pathetic and really does not care about his job. This might be entertaining for some people, but I guarantee he shouldn't have done some of what he did in front of children.
Bobby quit the school's hockey team, and Evan and Brian bully him and their one female teammate Karen, telling her she should play on a girls' team. Karen is pretty and nice and Bobby likes her, and it is possible their relationship will go somewhere.
The quality of life in this town is about to change, and not necessarily for the better. A major development called New Haven is coming to the local lake, which freezes over in winter. All the property owners affected have sold except the Whitesides. Sarah does not want to leave. However, Mr. Price, one of the other teachers and a potential romantic interest for Sarah, is a major partner. Also, he has bought the town's theater but intends to close it, not save it.
Bobby has the goal of clearing a path through the snow that has accumulated on the frozen lake. It's not clear what that would accomplish, but he gets up very early or stays up very late to do it, and one night a hockey rink mysteriously appears. Gus is the caretaker. He never really explains why he is there or what Bobby is supposed to learn.
Bobby tries to tell other people about this rink, but it never appears when anyone else is with him, and soon people are laughing at him for more reasons than they were already.
As Bobby tries to figure out what he is going to do with his life, his car starts misbehaving. Either the radio plays a 30-year-old commercial for a new movie, or the movie the viewer is watching is set 30 years ago. But Bobby uses a rotary phone and the cars are really old, and there is no technology. So perhaps the movie in the commercial is brand new.
And one night Bobby somehow ends up at the arena where his father played hockey for the Badgers. And he walks right into the locker room and sees his father's jersey. And meets another mysterious caretaker of another mysterious rink, who tells Bobby things about his father.
At this point, Bobby is trying to learn why his father left, as he also tries to solve the mystery of the rink on the lake. He also wants to save the lake from development. And then he learns things about his family he wishes he hadn't known, which threaten to drive him away for good.
During his subsequent visits to the lake rink, Bobby is visited by several people from his life who aren't really there.
Up until now the movie has been mostly depressing, but things change quickly and the viewer have the promise of some sort of reward. But like Bobby, the viewer might not get what is hoped for.
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By what name was A Miracle on Christmas Lake (2016) officially released in India in English?
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