One of the featured documentary films on the program at the upcoming Toronto Film Festival is one about hockey. No surprise Eh?
Filmmakers Alex Gibney, who earned an Oscar nomination for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Larry Weitzman who has produced documentaries like Year of the Yao and The NBA at 50, probe the legendary enforcers of the National Hockey League.
The surprise for Gibney came while interviewing NHL greats and cutting through the vicious veneer of Chris “Knuckles” Nilan, a former Montreal Canadien enforcer who plied his fisticuffs in the mid-eighties building scars while defending teammates. A real life Ogie Ogilthorpe.
Battling opponents to the roar of the crowd, Nilan, despite the massive penalty minutes, contributed to helping his team win the Stanley Cup.
But the core of the filmmakers’ story is - what happens when the cheering for blood on the ice stops?
The constant fighting took its toll and after two dozen surgeries and injuries force the Irishman from Masschusetts to retire in 1992, he faces a new battle: how do you stop being a goon and re-enter normal society?
Through the prism of hockey, The Last Gladiators raises a deeper issue about the bloodlust in our society and how we treat our enforcers when the battle is over.
