INTERVIEW: ‘Hockeyland’ goes into the heart of Minnesota’s North Country
Photo: Minnesota’s North Country and their love of hockey are the subjects of the new documentary Hockeyland. Photo courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment / Provided by the 2050 Group Publicity with permission.
Hockeyland, the new documentary from director Tommy Haines, tells the real-life story of high school hockey players in Minnesota’s North Country. These teenagers are dedicated to their sport, and the communities and families who surround them are there to support each game and each practice. This is a part of the United States, right below the border with Canada, where hockey is in the blood of adoring fans.
“This is an area I grew up playing in, playing hockey in northern Minnesota back in the ‘80s,” Haines said in a joint interview with his co-producer Andrew Sherburne. “Andrew and I have made five feature films together, and it’s something that I’ve wanted to return to — kind of my roots — for a long time and see how things have changed and how things have stayed the same and a general curiosity of what boys playing hockey go through in Minnesota in this day and age.”
The film is now playing in Minnesota, with more markets opening soon. Greenwich Entertainment, the distributor of the doc, recently reported that Hockeyland was the #1 documentary in movie theaters this past weekend.
“People maybe are familiar with Friday Night Lights or what football means to Texas or what basketball means to Indiana, those sorts of things,” Sherburne said. “That’s what hockey means to Minnesota. It’s woven into the fabric of these communities. It’s a part of their identity, and it’s a unique model, too. The way hockey works in Minnesota, these are public arenas, and these kids play for their public high schools often. There are private schools, too. They’re playing for their community, so there really is this sense that they represent their communities and that everybody is behind them. There’s something that’s absolutely unique within the United States in the way that hockey happens in Minnesota.”
Haines said one of the most difficult challenges of filming over the course of four months in the northern reaches of Minnesota was establishing trust with the boys they were documenting. These are 16, 17 and 18-year-old athletes, and the filmmakers wanted to have a positive relationship with them and their families.
“We had to work fast,” the director said. “With our last film, Saving Britain, we had months and months of time to meet [the central subject] and get to know him. With this, it needed to happen in a matter of weeks, and we just did the best we could with very slimmed down crews. We always like to have maybe one, two people at the most on a shoot just to keep things very intimate. … I really think the beauty of this film is going to be the intimacy with these kids and learning about not just their successes but their struggles on and off the ice. Hopefully that shines through.”
Selecting the players to profile also presented some challenges. They wanted a representative group of athletes, but also wanted to choose wisely because everyone loves a success story.
“It’s Minnesota hockey, so you want to have at least some representation of someone that’s going to be an elite level hockey player that’s going to play beyond that in college and then maybe the pros,” Haines said. “So we did find that guy in Blake Biondi, who is now playing Division I hockey in Duluth and is a Montreal [prospect], so that was a story we wanted to make sure we told, the pressures that kind of person has to deal with. But also [we were interested in] the everyday hockey guy. The other three boys we follow kind of have a variety of telling that story. One kid lives a block down from the Hippodrome in Eveleth, and he just walks to the rink and back. It’s such a nostalgic thing for me because that’s how we all did it when I was a kid, just put your stick and your skates over your shoulder and head down to the rink, so we want to make sure we have that hometown kid’s story as well. That was the goal. We probably started filming with 10-12 kids at the start and whittled down. I don’t want to call it a casting process, but something where it’s like, what are the stories here that are going to represent hockey in Minnesota? We need to find those boys that are going to do that. We eventually landed on these four boys that tell the story.”
Sherburne was quick to point out that the coaches in Hockeyland are important to the overall narrative as well. They found a pair of charismatic coaches who were dedicated to their teams. The filmmakers were looking for real screen presence and different personalities, and they found both.
“So I think people really have enjoyed getting to know them as well,” Sherburne said of the coaches. “They play such an essential role. We’re incredibly fortunate to get a couple great guys as coaches who were willing to give us access. Not only that, but we get some great Minnesota accents. You’ve got to have that.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Hockeyland, directed by Tommy Haines, is produced by Haines, Andrew Sherburne and JT Haines. Click here for more information.
