It’s been called the hockey showdown of the century and a defining moment in the history of our nation.

But Canada Russia ’72 – a four-hour dramatic miniseries about Team Canada’s mythologized 1972 eight-game face-off against the USSR – paints these hockey heroics in a very different light.

‘We never set out to make a Disney version of the games,’ says Barry Dunn of Halifax-based Summit Films, who coproduced the movie with Dream Street Productions in Moncton, and who cowrote the script with Malcolm MacRury (Lives of the Saints).

‘This is the story behind the story – the political intrigue, the treachery and duplicity, all the stuff of great drama. Not everything that happened in that hockey series was pretty,’ adds Dunn. The 2 x 120 mini airs April 9 and 10 on CBC.

CBC has commissioned a number of hockey-themed shows in recent years to tap into the built-in fan base of Hockey Night in Canada, its only consistently top-rated program. On March 29, the pubcaster premiered Kraft Hockeyville, a reality series in which communities across the country compete to prove they have the most hockey-spirited hometown.

The ambitious $7.8-million Canada Russia ’72 was shot over 36 days on location in Fredericton and Saint John, NB. In addition to the CBC licence, financing comes from Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Television Fund, equity investment from New Brunswick Film, a distribution advance from Maple Pictures, as well federal and provincial tax credits.

Veteran director T.W. Peacocke (Show Me Yours, Rent a Goalie) worked with a hockey choreographer who helped the actors re-create the pivotal on-ice sequences from the 1972 games. The large cast, all of whom did their own skating, includes Booth Savage, Mark Owen, Judah Katz, David Berni, Gabriel Hogan, David Miller and John Bregar.

‘We had to find people who could act, who could skate and who looked as much like their historical counterparts as possible,’ says Dunn. ‘There’s the extra burden of playing these larger-than-life, well-known figures.’

Recent big-ticket CBC TV shows, such as last fall’s Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making, have met with disappointing ratings due, say critics, to lackluster promotional efforts after last year’s CBC lockout.

Mary-Jo Osborn, director of advertising, media and creative at the network, says that while the pubcaster isn’t spending any more money on promotions than in the past, it is tailoring each campaign.

‘We are asking ourselves what audiences will this particular show appeal to, and we are making sure we find a way to get to them,’ she explains. ‘We are taking a strategic approach and targeting our campaigns accordingly.’

Canada Russia ’72 is being marketed via teasers on Hockey Night in Canada, ads in Sports Illustrated and daily papers, and in 15-second promotional spots on rink boards and marquees in sports stadiums across Canada.

‘We are blanketing the country,’ says Osborn. ‘Wherever there are sports fans, we want them to know about this movie.’

www.cbc.ca