Hockey and Olivia Newton-John may not seem a natural fit, but a new script from Michael McGowan helped secure the Grease star for his latest feature Score: A Hockey Musical, which goes to camera on Monday in Toronto for Mongrel Media.

Budgeted at $5.3 million, the film is McGowan’s largest to date, and follows last year’s road-trip drama One Week, which was a hit for Mongrel, earning $1.3 million at the box office.

The writer/director hopes to build on that success with a story that combines Canada’s favorite game with singing.

‘There seems to be a zeitgeist with everything from Mamma Mia! to Glee that audiences seem to be embracing musicals… there’s a real appetite for them,’ McGowan tells Playback Daily. He also points to the success of CBC reality Battle of the Blades, noting, ‘You can bring different things into the equation and still draw big numbers.’

Score follows a teenage hockey phenom (newcomer Noah Reid) who quickly goes from obscurity to fame, to his parents’ dismay. It stars Newton-John and Canuck songwriting vet Marc Jordan as his parents.

McGowan says he ‘pulled off the miracle’ of getting Newton-John through friends of friends. The Australian-born actor/musician, who will also appear on Fox’s Glee in the spring, loved the script, he says, and will also co-write and sing a song for the film’s end credits with Jordan.

The musical will be comprised of 19 songs, with lyrics written by McGowan, who is producing through his Mulmur Feed Company alongside Avi Federgreen (Hungry Hills), and exec producers Richard Hanet (One Week) and Jody Colero (Instant Star, One Week). Amy Wright of HBO’s Grey Gardens will choreograph. Canuck musician Hawksley Workman will also be featured in the film and on the soundtrack.

McGowan says the success of One Week put him on the map, which means there’s some pressure to deliver with Score.

‘I feel confident that we can pull off something special… but you just don’t know, that’s the magic of making [movies],’ he says of the film’s box-office prospects.

Score will shoot until March 8 in various Toronto locations including Nathan Phillips Square and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Mongrel has already scheduled it for a domestic release on Oct. 22.

Score was among the projects that received financial support from Astral Media The Harold Greenberg Fund. The organization recently announced its latest round of funding for 27 new projects at the script stage. Among them are Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz, Michael Dowse’s The Great Seduction (a Newfoundland take on the Quebec hit La grande séduction), and John L’Ecuyer’s Roadside.