What worked for Kevin Costner and baseball in Field of Dreams works equally well for a Canadian farmer and hockey in Labatt’s latest attempt at marrying two of Canada’s favorite pastimes.

The spot opens in a cornfield after the farmer has hosed down his impressive-sized homemade rink. A handful of hockey players from days past appear out of the blue from between the cornstalks and prepare to face off. When it’s discovered that no one remembered to bring a puck, they retire to the farmhouse and settle in for Hockey Night in Canada.

Directed by Industry Films’ Vadim Perelman out of l.a. and lensed by Barry Parrell, the three-day wintry shoot out of Ammirati Puris Lintas took place on a Woodstock, Ont. farm in mid-September.

The task was to maintain a cool, crisp, winter-at-the-break-of-dawn ambiance during a 26-degree Indian summer day as the hockey players overheated and the mounds of foamy snow covering the corn and piled on the rink quickly disintegrated.

The rink itself was a three-quarter scale wooden version of a hockey rink, and any skating action that took place was done on in-line skates and shot above the knee.

For shots of steel blades on ice, they took the job to an actual rink where the ghostly hockey players were captured skating in front of a blue screen. A few rows of corn were set up on the ice, also in front of a blue screen, and all were matched up in post by David Baxter at Panic & Bob.

Antique skates and original team jerseys lend a nostalgic realism to the spot. ‘The biggest thing,’ says Perelman, ‘was to stay authentic and stay true to the Canadian vibe of it all. Instead of trying to push the angles and force it in, I just let the story live by itself.’

Perelman, who describes his reel as having a ‘dark and edgy’ quality, says what attracted him to this assignment was the feature film quality of the spot and the opportunity to work on something different.

While in Toronto, Perelman directed a second job for Labatt in which a wedding organist breaks into a rendition of the famous hockey game charge tune. Parrell was dop on the one-day shoot.

Agency credits go to creative director Doug Robinson, copywriter Greg Frier, art director Stephen Jurisic and producer Pat White. Industry’s Tina Petridis was executive producer and Sophia Peckan produced. David Baxter edited at Panic & Bob.