What the Puck?
A Yankee sport finds an unlikely home in Central Texas
By Mark Fagan, Fri., Oct. 23, 2009
What started out in Canadian transplant Craig Knapp's mind as a feature-length film covering the growth of hockey in the South quickly narrowed its focus to a beer league in Austin. Despite landing interviews with well-respected Dallas Stars announcer Ralph Strangis and current Star Steve Ott, the filmmakers were not fully embraced by the big boys of hockey. Director Knapp states via e-mail: "Other than the Dallas Stars, no NHL team would help us. We tried to get access to the NHL All-Star Game in Dallas but were denied. So then we needed to change our focus. We shot over 300 hours of footage – games, parties, interviews – and it was clear that we just needed to narrow the focus and concentrate on the characters." And characters he found in the Roadrunner Adult Hockey League, a tiny Texas outpost of a sport more commonly played way north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Interspersed between Knapp's documentary footage of the league are five "educational" shorts featuring first-time local child actor Nolan McNearny and the more experienced Trace Crutchfield from New York. These clips are educational yet rife with the politically incorrect humor and foul language one would expect from blue-collar, beer-swilling hockey lovers. One of Knapp's favorite scenes in Hockey Night in Texas is "the story that opens the film about the goalie who was trying to research equipment but inadvertently stumbled upon and signed up for a Gay Goalie Fetish site. I had heard that story way before we decided to make the film and once we got it going I knew that's how I wanted it to open." And then there's the older, heavy-set goalkeeper who goes down for the puck just fine but needs some time getting back up.
While a marriage or two may have fallen apart or been torn at the seams by the players' commitment to the league and the long hours spent drinking at the rink, Knapp shares that "what makes this story special is the people. Here is a group of people from very different backgrounds and experiences that normally would never hang out together let alone become close friends, but because of this league and their shared love of the game, they have created life-long bonds." The players featured in Hockey Night in Texas attempt to shrug off the importance they place on their amateur-level games, but they quickly own up to the fact that they agonize over these contests as if there is a cup to be won, not the bottles of beer that await them afterward. Many end up finding some of their dearest friends (and fiercest enemies) out on the ice. They breathe in and bleed out hockey, despite their drought-stricken 100-degrees-plus surroundings.
Hockey Night in Texas
Austin Screens, World PremiereSaturday, Oct. 24, 8pm,
Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek;
Thursday, Oct. 29, 9pm, Arbor
