MONTREAL — Quebec’s best-loved hockey team is lacing up its skates once again, but this time Les Boys will be looking to continue their remarkable winning streak on the small screen.

The 20 x 30 series is currently shooting at a budget around $400,000 per ep. The producer of the blockbuster Les Boys film franchise, which has grossed $23 million at the box office over four installments since 1997, decided to make the series because Quebec fans just can’t seem to get enough of the motley band of amateur hockey players.

‘There isn’t a day that goes by when someone doesn’t go up to one of the performers on the street and ask them when there will be more of Les Boys. So we decided it was time to make a TV series,’ says Melenny Productions’ Richard Goudreau. ‘Now we have the chance to go much deeper into the characters. We have a great deal to say.’

Directed by Louis Bolduc (Belle-Baie), the TV series reunites the original cast, including Rémy Girard (Les Bougon), Marc Messier (Lance et compte: La revanche), Paul Houde (Le Cercle), Luc Guérin (Détect.inc) as well as Pierre Lebeau, Roc Lafortune, Michel Charette, Patrick Labbé, Yvan Ponton and Réal Béland.

In the film, the hockey team plays in a weekly garage league. In the TV series, their coach registers the team for a $1-million tournament in Las Vegas. ‘The entry fee is $10,000 for each player, so much of the drama centers around their attempts to come up with the money to get to Las Vegas,’ says Goudreau.

Les Boys will be broadcast on Radio-Canada this October, in time for the first movie’s 10th anniversary. Shooting wraps up mid-July.