Terry Sawchuk Biopic Starring Mark O'Brien and Kevin Pollak Opens March 1

Daniel Iron, Vice President of Blue Ice Pictures, is pleased to announce that Goalie, the feature film about legendary goaltender, Terry Sawchuk, starring Mark O'Brien (City on a Hill, The Front Runner, Halt and Catch Fire, The Rival), Kevin Pollak (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Mom, The Usual Suspects) and Georgina Reilly (Murdoch Mysteries, Blindspot, The LA Complex) will open on March 1, 2019 in Toronto and Vancouver, and additional cities in the spring.

Goalie is directed by Adriana Maggs (Sundance award-winning Grown Up Movie Star, Caught, Three Chords from the Truth), based on a screenplay by Adriana Maggs and Jane Maggs (Anne, Bellevue, Madiba) and produced by Daniel Iron (Anthropocene: The Human Epoch,The Indian Detective, Cairo Time, Away From Her), Lance Samuels (The Indian Detective, Madiba, The Book of Negroes), Neil Tabatznik (Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Solitary, Nebraska, The Bang Bang Club), with Mark O'Brien as Executive Producer. Filming took place in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Goalie is based in part on the award-winning book of poetry Night Work by Randall Maggs and Sawchuk: The Troubles and Triumphs of the World's Greatest Goalie by David Dupuis.

The life of a professional hockey player was not always a glamorous one. For legendary goaltender Terry Sawchuk, each save means one more gash to his UNMASKED face and one more drink to numb the pain. Even with a wife and seven children at home, he is haunted by the void left from his childhood which he tried to fill with cheering crowds. Following Sawchuk from his youth in Winnipeg to Detroit, Boston, Toronto, Los Angeles, and New York between 1950 and 1970, his 103 shutouts and 400 stitches to his face, this is a man who lives, breathes, and dies a goalie.

"In talking with Adriana Maggs, I saw there was a movie in here that was not simply a "sports" film, not about who won the game or who won the series; it could be much more human and universal: about fear of failure; about what really makes for a satisfied life. There's massive human depth to Terry Sawchuk which is why he has inspired a lot of fascination and obsession over the years, BEYOND his unparalleled skills, grit and the records that lasted for decades. And the sheer brutality of that position back then! Behind the perceived glory, there is such inherent fear in these players. Any failure on their part, any injury meant they could be traded without their knowledge or shipped down to the purgatory of the minors. So they would play entire seasons with broken ankles, hide illness and pain out of the desperate fear of letting owners know they were injured. The stresses of living that kind of life are certainly the stuff of compelling, high drama," noted Producer Daniel Iron.

"My sister, Jane, and I loved our father's poetry about the story of Terry Sawchuk and it led us to want to explore masculinity in a world where a man's worth is measured in the ways he is a warrior. Could Sawchuk have been the goalie he was, had the gaping holes of self-doubt not needed to be filled by fickle fans and money-hungry managers? Did he ever see his value? Evenat the end? Kevin Pollack blessed us with a provocative performance as general manager Jack Adams that runs so rich and deep, Georgina Reilly brought an exquisite take on a hockey wife in the 1950s, neither "revisionist feminist" nor victim. We were joined by a huge cast of excellent actors who portrayed characters Terry moved through as he bounced from team to team, and ultimately Mark O'Brien became Terry Sawchuk. Nobody could've brought Terry to life like Mark, who rides the complex line of victorious and haunted so beautifully. My sister and I wrote this for Mark and watched his star RISE until he was almost out of our reach. We were lucky we made it when we did," said Director and Co-Writer Adriana Maggs.

Goalie is distributed in Canada by Mongrel Media with worldwide sales being handled by 13 Films.

Cinematography by Jason Tan (Grown Up Movie Star, An American Dream, Good God), production design by Joseph Kabbach, costume design by Kendra Terpenning (Through Black Spruce, Stickman, Neverknock) and editing by Simone Smith (Never Steady, Never Still, That's My DJ).

Goalie is produced in association with Telefilm Canada, Ontario Creates, NOHFC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

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