Ice Guardians

 

                        Now, a couple of weeks ago I reviewed my opinions of the movie Goon, starring Stifler and Victor Creed. And I just happened to mention a small documentary, a film titled Ice Guardians and believe me when I say this, I feel like this would be a much better recommendation than watching Goon. Though in all fairness I do need to expand my horizons at times and sometimes there good hidden gems and, well at times they just don't age well or makes you lose into the reign of how can you do this better even though this film has already been made and there is no point in wanting to fix, that certain film like Goon unless you have all the money in the world to remake that movie, than sure.

                        The film explains the evolution of the on-ice enforcer, which was around since the days of the Original Six, later made a big impact in the seventies, as well as the eighties and nineties, but the after those years it soon becomes a decline of the enforcer as well as a debate on whether these warriors should still be around for these superstars or perish.

                        Not to say that Goon wasn't a bad film, and you shouldn't watch the film, that's not what I'm intending, and really Goon was a decent film though had a ton of flaws, things that just don’t work for me as an audience member. Ice Guardians for me is for certain, that go to movie to watch if you want to see a great story about these hockey goons or warriors that gives a great reason as to why we all love hockey, and if you’re not a fan of Hockey your obviously there for the Hockey fights. Now, I can't decide everyone's opinion because in all fairness every sport in America has changed from football to baseball, hell even basketball has changed more than baseball but the game of hockey has stayed true to its origin for a long time even if you don't want to watch the game all the way through and, there is some fights happening in regular season time but there's a whole lot of fights when it comes to the playoffs even though you'll probably be bored but for me, I don't care a whole lot about wanting to see more fights when it comes to hockey as long as my team is winning and especially when it takes a number of minutes for my team scores a goal is when I jump up and down and glad to see that my team is winning or the game is at the point of no comeback then I turn the television off. What makes this film great furthermore one of the best Hockey films of all time, is that the film alone give you a down to earth realization of why the enforcer is always important especially in the game of hockey mainly because if you look at the great one aka Wayne Gretzky career he had a ton of guys backing him up when he was on the ice throughout his career shattering records, and yet when you take a look at Sidney Crosby's career he had a lot more concussions than Gretzky ever had, and that's because the league started dismantling a lot of the hockey goons, all because there trying to get passed a ton of the Hockey violence which leads to the important question of would the game of Hockey be just a little more safe than the league being a little too worried about the fighting of hockey being a bad influence. The other thing in what this film does perfectly is that we see a glimpse of these guys who when they do get into the NHL, there it’s a dream come true but then they have to go back down and realize that there position as well as there playing time isn't enough and it's a matter of time of when there time of playing is coming to an end or can they still have the mental capacity to keep playing through the pain and injuries. In terms of Hockey movies I've seen I will rank Ice Guardians, up there between Slap Shot and Miracle, and even though this is a documentary the film tells a great story about the solo role of the enforcer protecting teammates not matter the cost and later in life, has suddenly diminish and what truly happens when some of these superstars now, all of a sudden don't become protected and what happens. The film is both on Tubi as well as Amazon Prime so if you’re a fan of Hockey or the NHL, I would most certainly recommend watching Ice Guardians from start to finish.