After the failure of MVP, Power Play, and Rent-A-Goalie, it might
seem like TV shows about hockey are destined for failure. But with The
Officials, Greg Rosen is out to prove Hockey Night in Canada doesn't
have to be the only succe...
After the failure of MVP, Power Play, and Rent-A-Goalie, it might
seem like TV shows about hockey are destined for failure. But with The
Officials, Greg Rosen is out to prove Hockey Night in Canada doesn't
have to be the only successful hockey series.
"Four years
since writing the 22-minute pilot episode in my crappy student apartment
I think I finally put something together that hockey fans will nod in
agreement and feel like is a series for them—for us."
The
Officials, developed from Rosen's final year Radio and Television Arts
project at Ryerson University, is a single-camera web comedy that
follows Shane Wolfe, son of the most infamous goon in the NAHL (the
show's version of the NHL). But instead of following in his father's
footsteps, Shane decides to go in the complete opposite direction and
become a referee.
"Shane is a bright-eyed young guy who
refereed street hockey games instead of playing," Rosen said. "He calls
everything by the book and does everything by the book."
But
a beer league hockey dressing room is where naivety goes to die. And
Shane is quickly schooled by a motley crew of officials, including one
who, according to Rosen, "is in complete denial that he is farsighted
and partially colour blind."
"Shane, along with the
viewer, get schooled on what happens on and off the ice and the
unwritten code of conduct," Rosen said. "He learns 'Our uniforms might
be black and white, but it doesn't mean we officiate that way'. Despite
his best efforts to distinguish himself from his father, he learns
perhaps he isn't so different from hockey's most badass enforcer."
No discussion about hockey in movies or TV is complete without at least a passing reference to Slap Shot, and although Rosen describes it as his Bible, the
idea for the show wasn't totally inspired by the 70s classic.
"The idea came from a lot of frustration," Rosen
said. "Frustration that Canada, the greatest hockey playing nation on
Earth, could not produce a series that hockey fans actually watched.
There has to be a reason why people weren't watching."
One
reason for past failures like Rent-A-Goalie or MVP, according to Rosen,
is that the shows tried to create too much of their own history for
fictional leagues, something that could never replicate the long,
storied history of the NHL. A fictional rivalry between two TV teams has
a tough time getting fans emotionally invested in the same way they do
for a rivalry between teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal
Canadiens.
To combat this problem, The Officials intends
to take storylines straight from the pages of hockey's history books,
something that helped Goon become a great hockey movie. The
Officials includes references to famous incidents in NHL history, "like a
fan falling through the glass trying to get at Tie Domi", plus plenty
of more subtle jokes for hockey fans, like "jock straps with drawn on
stitches," a clever homage to Boston goalie Gerry Cheevers.
Leafs fans, in particular, will get a kick out of the reference to a famous non-call that still haunts them to this day.
"One
of our referees is Russ McCafferty, who became a raging alcoholic due
to the backlash from a missed call in the 1993 NAHL playoffs, costing a
team the series. Now he officiates in a local arena to escape it all,"
Rosen said.
The source material isn't entirely NHL based,
however. Rosen, like many Canadians, spent a lot of time in the hockey
rink growing up and used those experiences for the show, something he
hopes will make it more accessible.
"The sights, the
sounds, the loud, crazy hockey moms, the funny looking Zamboni drivers
that always scream at you to stay off the ice until the gates
close—those are the kinds of stuff most players and fans can relate to."
There are a lot of hurdles to overcome before the show makes its debut, however.
Rosen,
who has received
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