Cinema Australia is thrilled to share an exclusive first look at new feature documentary, Hard As Puck. Watch it now below. 

Behind every local sporting club are volunteers giving up their time, solving problems and doing whatever it takes to keep the doors open. It’s a story that will be familiar to sporting communities across Australia, and it’s one that sits at the heart of Hard as Puck.

The new Australian documentary follows Western Australia’s Garden Island Pirates para ice hockey club as it battles financial pressures, leadership changes and the everyday challenges of running a volunteer-driven sporting organisation while chasing international ambitions.

Rather than focusing solely on the sport, writer and director Isaac Elliott wanted to explore the people who make clubs like this possible.

“I grew up on the outskirts of Alice Springs, where my family were the caretakers for the local motocross club,” Elliott said.

“I spent my childhood watching the volunteers of the club in a perpetual state of uncontrolled chaos. The club was constantly broke, on the brink of collapse, and yet somehow the races always ran.”

It wasn’t until producer Chanel Bowen approached him to direct Hard as Puck that he began thinking about the struggles faced by volunteer-run sporting clubs everywhere.

“In the film, Belinda asks, ‘How do clubs keep running when no one wants to run them?’ And the only logical answer I could ever find was love,” Elliott said.

“Love for the sport. Love for the people. And in some cases, love for the logistics of achieving something unexpected.”

As filming began, Elliott didn’t know exactly where the story would lead.

“My priority was the people. Stay close, stay quiet, let our characters talk and hope, and out of this, a story emerged.”

He also wanted to avoid telling the kind of disability story that audiences have seen many times before.

“I approached this through an inquisitive narrative lens to avoid the trap every documentary about disabled athletes falls into, the trauma narrative,” he said.

“I am a paraplegic and this repetitive story crutch makes me want to switch off immediately. Give me the human drama, not the lazy sympathy card.”

That human drama quickly arrived when club president Mike Francis revealed he was considering stepping down.

“That became our north star. The human drama at the centre of volunteer politics, the same drama I’d been immersed in throughout my childhood,” Elliott said.

Producer Chanel Bowen also brought a deeply personal perspective to the project. Living with a hidden disability, she has often found herself feeling caught between two worlds.

She says she has frequently felt “too disabled for the non-disabled community” and “not disabled enough for the disabled community”, an experience that motivated her to help bring more authentic disability stories to Australian screens.

Bowen and Elliott were determined to tell a story that focused on real people rather than stereotypes. They wanted representation that reflected genuine human experiences instead of relying on inspirational clichés.

Production was anything but straightforward. Original plans to follow players from around Australia fell apart when access disappeared. The filmmakers then turned their attention to the Western Australian club, only to discover the Garden Island Pirates had no local opponents to play against. Plans to follow the Mixed Para Ice Hockey World Championships also collapsed when the event was cancelled.

Instead of giving up, the filmmakers stayed patient, extending filming from 28 to 40 days as tensions within the club began to surface. Their persistence paid off when the first Women’s World Para Ice Hockey Championships were announced, providing the story with a fitting conclusion.

Hard as Puck ultimately celebrates much more than para ice hockey. It recognises the volunteers who quietly keep community sport alive and reminds audiences that every successful club is built on dedication, resilience and a genuine love of the game.

Hard as Puck is written and directed by Isaac Elliott and produced by Chanel Bowen and Noel Smyth. Executive producers are Bec Bignell and Ian Hale of HALO Films. The documentary features Daniel Perrett, Belinda Green, Cliff Nutt, Mike Francis, Rosa-Lee Principe, Dawn Watt and Freya Levy.

Hard as Puck will celebrate its World Premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Full details announced soon. 

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