Hot Docs 2008

There's no margin for error, getting drunk or breaking curfew in the high-stakes game stickhandled by the coaches, agents, trainers, owners and shareholders of junior hockey. Direct cinema and dramatic editing capture the joys and the anguish of young Baie-Comeau players throughout an entire season. The team isn't doing well and the pressure to win is intense. As players autograph their pictures for teenage girls after a game, managers and owners meet behind closed doors to decide their fate. In one brutal scene, a player is "fired" minutes before the team photo shoot. In another, a player is told he's been traded and has 30 minutes to catch a bus to a different city to play that night-or his hockey career is over. Junior has no actual hockey scenes, but superb filmmaking and the boys' rough and tumble passage to manhood take this film beyond a typical sports documentary. In French and English with English subtitles.
-Lynne Fernie