When describing the iteration of his decade-in-the-making hockey movie, Cody Lightning explained how his comedy morphed into a dramedy the more he explored the heavy concepts related to his story. For young indigenous hockey players, racism, sexism, drugs, poverty, and the like informed the themes of his story which altered its genre.

And though they’re ultimately on different ice rinks, his story has a lot in common with everyone’s favourite story of an underdog hockey team, The Mighty Ducks. A messy, begrudged coach, a coed team, a player who’s outgrown the league, and a league they have to try to live up to all inform the story of both of these teams, but with the Cree creator steeping his in indigeneity, there are marked differences in themes and tone.

The Treat 6 Blades are a struggling rag tag group. Their skillset is spread and they experience overt racism from the league and their rough coach (Ed Helms, playing against type as a harsh retired hockey player raining terror upon his team). When they’re kicked out of their league for playing rough (one bad hit is all it takes for a team of indigenous youth), they band together with a scrappy new coach in it for all the wrong reasons. The kids have big dreams that they hope hockey can deliver to them, so losing a league spot is an unfathomable hit. They’ll have to rely on their coach to straighten himself up and then them so they can have a chance at battling on the ice in a world where fairness isn’t an option.

Though the team and coach are scrappy and rag tag, this is hardly a comedy story. The kids’ parents struggle with drugs, money, and views on sexuality. The kids themselves are forced to manage that on their own, if that means begging for their equipment back from a pawn shop or bearing the weight of being a family’s golden goose. Lightning’s story is often pitch black, and he resists even a quip on the ice for levity.

But that’s the story he’s telling, something different from the snappy funny indigenous hockey tales peppered into Letterkenny or Shoresy. He’s not shying away from a bleak reality, he is using hockey to portray it and also to create a space of hope and light for the youth on his screen.

The hockey scenes don’t always look smooth or professional, though some of the actors are hockey players first. But there’s a distinct awareness of shooting (film, not pucks) on the ice, and scenes in the rink look slick though naturalistic. Much of the drama takes place in a dingy bar, a chipping locker room, or a rink’s parking lot which will feel like familiar locales for life for anyone who’s been a youth chasing the show (or anyone who’s consumed other hockey flicks like Goon). The story feels true and honest and gives hope to young people up against odds they might not be able to overcome.

Smudge the Blades isn’t a feel-good underdog sports story, but it shares that DNA. It’s a sometimes bleak but otherwise beautiful story about team sports and how they create found family, opportunity, and camaraderie in a world where you’re asked to shoot from the red line.