Wow. I saw this film on network television 32 years ago before the internet, Amazon, and when Gretzky was in his prime. I gave up on ever seeing it again but there it was on Amazon Prime.
The plot mostly resembles that of Youngblood where a young hockey player from a small town farm learns the hard way about life in the Canadian minor league hockey system.
As a made for TV afternoon film there refreshingly is no foul language, nudity or even blood but it doesn't really take anything away from the film. It's doesn't have the star power of Youngblood, the vulgarity of Slap Shot, nor the vulgarity and violence of Goon...but it's a good hockey film.
The film balances the dramatic plot with hockey action pretty evenly, the characters are all pretty agreeable to the eye and there's no real antagonist in the entire film. I wouldn't call this an intense or emotion evoking film, it's pretty low key with no real twists or deep meaning...it just moves along to a rather ambiguous ending.
However, there are problems as the production value isn't really high; the character developments are pretty shallow, especially in the case of the main character, the young Cory Dyson. There are several pauses where commercial breaks no doubt were inserted, so several of the scenes transition awkwardly to the next scene that almost makes it seem like a series of vignettes.
Was it worth a 32 year wait? Probably not, I was just happily surprised to run across it and it was pretty much like I remembered it.
