Sport and Cinema.com

The men’s hockey competiton at the XXIst Winter Games in Vancouver will be one of the most coveted tickets form the first day of competiton through to the gold medal match, but will Canada even be in that title game?

There are plenty of world class teams that are capable of winning it all including Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic.

2010 Vancouver Olympic Television Schedule

Making its national debut over the past weekend is a comedy from Fox that features Dwayne Johnson as Derek Thompson aka The Tooth Fairy, a rough-house hockey player whose nickname comes from his penchant for separating opposing players from their teeth.

When Derek discourages a youngster’s dreams, he is sentenced to one week’s hard labor as a real tooth fairy forced to trade in a hockey stick for a magic wand and shoulder pads for wings.

As we begin 2010 it is time to consider which is the BEST sports movie from the first decade of the 21st Century.

There are some very good choices. Documentaries, by the way, like “Dogtown and Z-Boys” deserve their own column.

Here is the Top Ten:

Celebrating their 30th anniversary by engaging well-known filmmakers to create documentaries centered on the last 30 years in sports, ESPN’s ambitious project takes to the air beginning in the fall.
Airing on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET beginning October 6 and running through November 10,the series features notable directors and producers from Hollywood exploring topics ranging from the end of the USFL to the title fight between Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes to the story of the Baltimore Colts Marching Band which continued to march even though the team had moved to Indianapolis. Peter Berg’s film exploring the effects of the shocking trade of Wayne Gretzky from Edmonton to Los Angeles in 1988 will kick off the series Tuesday, Oct. 6.

The Penguins, led by captain Sidney Crosby and such established stars as Conn Smythe winner Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury reached the pinnacle of the hockey world through a memorable season that involved many challenges.

In hoping to win the Stanley Cup for the fifth time in 12 seasons and to lift the spirits of an especially economically depressed area, Detroit’s tough Game 7 victory over Anaheim sets up an Original Six matchup against the well-rested Chicago squad in the conference finals beginning today at the Motor City’s Joe Louis Arena.

Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Tupac Shakur, Jimmy the Greek Snyder are all subjects in upcoming films from Hollywood directors for ESPN. Noted filmmakers, assorted Oscar nominees and Peabody Award winners among them, will ply their talents to celebrate ESPN’s 30 year history by creating one hour films on sports-related topics which will debut in the fall.
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ESPN Films is announcing 10 additional filmmakers for its ambitious “30 for 30″ film project. The filmmakers include Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights), Academy Award nominee Ron Shelton (Bull Durham), Academy Award nominee Brett Morgen (On the Ropes), and Academy Award nominee Steve James (Hoop Dreams), as well as Academy Award winner Bill Couturié, Peabody Award winner Fritz Mitchell, Reggie Rock Bythewood, Jonathan Hock, Jeff Zimbalist and the duo of Lucas Jansen and Adam Kurland.

Heading into tonight’s pivotal game 4, Calgary is hoping to buck the odds against them.

The Flames have never won a playoff series trailing 0-2 AND teams holding a two-game lead in NHL playoff series have won a whopping 85+ percent of them in league history.