From summer training camp to the World Championships, through physiotherapy sessions, hotels, locker rooms and onto the bus, National Film Board director Lyn Wright, dop Joan Hutton and producer Silva Basmajian are capturing on film the story of Canada’s first national women’s Olympic hockey team as they earn their way to Nagano, Japan.

After completing Baseball Girls, a history of women in softball and baseball, in ’96, Basmajian wanted to continue producing films on women in sports, an area she says is virtually unexplored in Canadian doc-making circles.

With women’s hockey in a medal competition for the first time and sponsors taking an interest in the sport, the three filmmakers agreed it was a good time to document the victories and struggles of the undefeated Canadian women hockey players in the male-dominated arena.

‘There are two things that I have always said Canada is known for, hockey and their tradition of documentary filmmaking,’ says Basmajian. ‘It is a natural fit to put the two together and make a great doc.’

The nfb doc is being lensed for just under $500,000.

The producer’s goal is to see the documentary, working titled The Road To Nagano or Ice Time, air on the cbc as a cliffhanger prior to the Olympics, introducing the Canadians to the team, the players and the story. Although the producers say CBC Sports was excited by a 17-minute screening and is recommending it air as a primetime special, no deals have been finalized yet.

Following the Olympics, nfb editor Steve Weslak will return to the edit suite to add in the big game, making the final cut available for future telecasts and video distribution to homes, schools and libraries.

Basmajian says aside from the adrenaline-pumping action, the doc also has an educational component to it and provides young girls with valuable female role models.

From the beginning of the project early in the year, the focus has been on six players along and the coach, who Wright says ‘win on their heart and soul; they support and stand by each other.’

While the all-female crew aspire to document the intensity and emotion of the team members, judgment calls had to be made on when to sacrifice a few winning shots for the sake of the players’ concentration and the game.

Hutton says the challenge of the shoot is getting the fly-on-the-wall ‘cinema verite stuff’ while coping with light and space restrictions. She recalls a between-periods dressing room scenario which found the dop wedged up against a urinal with her hand-held camera.

Although it may not be the most exciting piece of footage, Hutton says for her, one of the highlights of the shoot was a capturing the taut look on the coach’s face – which she held for about five minutes – seconds before the pivotal winning goal was scored at the World Championships.

‘I knew either they were going to win and she would have a wonderful expression on her face or they would lose and she would have a wonderful expression, but I knew this shot was the money,’ says Hutton. ‘When the goal was scored her face lit up like 1,000 candles. I shot her coming out of the box onto the ice with the team all hugging and circling around. It was wonderful because there was so much emotion flying around in the air.’