Score: A Hockey Musical

Score: A Hockey Musical (2010)

Seventeen-year old Farley has the stick-handling skills of the next Sidney Crosby. Not that Farley has any idea who Crosby is. He’s led a sheltered life, homeschooled by parents whose idea of homework is trips to an art gallery or ashram. His best friend is Eve, the girl who’s lived next door since they were both three. Much to the dismay of his parents, Farley loves to play shinny with the local rink rats. To their even greater dismay, Farley is signed to a major hockey league, where he achieves instant stardom, throwing him into a world of hype. Farley soon finds that hockey fame comes with a price, including the expectation to fight. Throw in a changing relationship with Eve – and Farley is losing his way.

Date of release
2010-10-22
TMDB
5.2 / 10 (5)
Runtime
1h 33m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Michael McGowan

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Toronto

Score: A Hockey Musical is a 2010 Canadian coming-of-age musical comedy film written and directed by Michael McGowan starring Noah Reid, Allie MacDonald, Olivia Newton-John, Marc Jordan and Nelly Furtado. The story follows a sheltered, pacifistic teenager who becomes a star player in a violent junior ice hockey league.

Production

Director Michael McGowan wrote the script. Music had been integral to his previous film, One Week, and he decided to go further in that direction with a musical. While developing ideas in January 2009, he thought he could find humour by setting the musical in hockey culture. The project was developed under the working title Hockey: The Musical.

McGowan took some inspiration from musical film Once, the duet in Juno and the closing dance number in Slumdog Millionaire. McGowan wrote the lyrics so that the songs advanced the narrative and worked with Canadian composers to set them to music.

Dance scenes were choreographed by Amy Wright. McGowan wanted to convey humour with the dancing hockey players and wanted them to be a little awkward and imperfect. Instead of employing figure skaters, Wright found ballet, jazz and hip-hop dancers who had a background in ice hockey. Months were spent to ensure the songs and choreography worked for the film.

Executive producer Jody Colero knew singer-songwriter Jordan and brought him in for the father role. Jordan's wife, Amy Sky, was friends with Olivia Newton-John and sent her the script. McGowan considered it a "casting coup" when the pop music icon agreed to co-star in the film, which also encouraged international sales. Jordan hadn't acted since a short period with The Groundlings.

McGowan expected to have difficulty casting the lead, but Reid was their first audition and satisfied the director with his acting, skating and singing. Reid's audition included some one-on-one play with McGowan at the Upper Canada College hockey rink.

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