by TONY ATHERTON
TV SCENE
October 10th, 1998​

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There is no doubting the national identity of the latest effort from producers Bill Laurin and Glenn Davis (John Woo’s Once a Thief).

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Power Play, premiering Thursday at 7 p.m. on CKY, is the story of a fictitious NHL franchise. It is as Canadian as, well, hockey. In theory, that should mean better ratings than Once a Thief obtained. Much better ratings.

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Power Play stars Michael Riley, Kari Matchett, Gordon Pinsent and Al Waxman.

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“It borders on the cliche, but it is really hard to come up with a better metaphor for Canadian life than hockey,” Davis says.

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“As has been pointed out, it is the only thing this country — every region in this country — has in common. I think the legends of hockey and the history of hockey provide us something of a mythology.”

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Power Play isn’t so much a TV series for Davis and Laurin as it is an act of faith in Canada, the country the writing team once abandoned to pursue successful, if spiritually unrewarding, careers in Hollywood.

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The new series also is the end of the rainbow, the brass ring, the one project Davis and Laurin say they have been waiting all their lives to produce.

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“It’s what we would call a tombstone show,” Laurin says, meaning it would make a great epitaph for their partnership.

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“If this show works right, it would be really great if people would say, ‘Oh, yeah, they created Power Play,’” he says. “It’s the kind of show you spend a long time in the business hoping that one day you’ll get to do.”

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Brett Parker, the expatriate Canadian character in Power Play (played engagingly by familiar stage and film actor Michael Riley), feels a tug back towards Canada.

 

Parker has not merely left Canada, but denounced it, erasing any hint of his former ties to the country.

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Worse, he has become a bloodsucking, ratings-hungry U.S. sports agent whose mission in life is to streamline, repackage and market Canada’s national sport to maximize his own profits.

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Through a series of remarkably contrived events, Parker finds himself drawn back into Canada as the general manager of an expansion team in his home town of Hamilton.

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Laurin and Davis have taken pains to get the hockey right, hiring former NHL and Junior A players to act in the piece. But Power Play is not really a hockey series, Laurin says. In any given hour-long episode, no more than about six minutes will be filmed on the ice.

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“It’s about the lives of the people around the team … it’s about what it is to be Canadian and to live in Canada.”