Chris Driedger was 16 minutes away from winning the 2022 men’s World Championships for Team Canada when disaster struck.

A post-to-post push led to the complete tear of his ACL, ending his night and putting his professional hockey career in jeopardy. He watched Finland complete its comeback from the sidelines, feeling helpless, haunted by the “click” sound his knee had made when he pushed into his right post.

Driedger was given a nine month recovery timeline. Back at home, it was six months before doctors let him skate. Instead of letting the monotony of daily rehab defeat him, he discovered a new passion and spent the next three years following it through.

This is the story of how a Winnipeg-born goaltender — now part of the Jets organization, just down the road from where he grew up — found himself producing a documentary film about a California-based roller hockey league with one of the most unique backstories in hockey history. It’s called “Pro Beach Hockey: Sun, Surf and Slapshots” and Driedger says producing it helped change his mindset at one of the darkest times in his career.

“It was a lifesaver having something else going on to take my mind off the fact that I wasn’t able to play hockey — which is, you know, my entire life.”

By the late 1990s, Wayne Gretzky had come and gone from Los Angeles but his legacy remained. Interest in hockey was at an all-time high and businesspeople went looking for a way to capitalize. One of those people was David B. McLane, the wrestling promoter who started GLOW: The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

McLane wanted to take a run at roller hockey, taking his experience in the entertainment industry to brand new terrain, so he created a league called Pro Beach Hockey. Games were played on outdoor rinks with ramps behind the net, angled glass to keep the ball (not puck) in the play, and a two point line that worked similarly to the three point line in basketball.

The league was populated with ex-roller-hockey stars, including a few NHL players, running for two months for three straight summers — turning roller hockey into an outsized spectacle. It was made for TV, with all three seasons airing on ESPN2, but developed a cult audience at Huntington Beach where it was filmed.

Driedger was four years old when the league launched. He didn’t find out about it until partway through his first season with the Seattle Kraken, where he was reunited with longtime teammate and friend, Max McCormick.

Over brunch, McCormick told Driedger about his friend Jake Cimperman and the idea for a “roller hockey documentary.” McCormick was skeptical at first, Driedger says, but the moment McCormick showed him the league’s teaser video, Driedger was hooked.

“It was this weird, interesting mix of the WWE and the NHL that I’d never seen before,” Driedger says. “I just watched it and instantly thought, ‘If I saw this teaser, I would want to watch the documentary.’”

Driedger nudged McCormick to set up a call with Cimperman. That call and the ones that followed went well; eventually Driedger and McCormick helped send Cimperman to Los Angeles to start interviewing people for the film. The three of them held regular meetings to sort out the direction of the documentary, plan marketing, and strategize its release, creating a production company called Sin Bin Studios.

Driedger says the biggest driving force for his involvement was his own curiosity.

“The league was just so wild and fast-paced and unique and aired on ESPN. That brought this level of intrigue and I wanted to know more. There were ramps behind the net and I wanted to know who thought of that. How did that play out in games? Did the players go up these ramps? I’m thinking in my head: Imagine there’s ramps on the ice in hockey. That would be absurd. So there were a lot of questions I wanted answers to.”

“And the characters were really good. Mike Butters from Winnipeg was playing at 6-foot-3, 255 pounds or something like that and he was a fighter … All of it was before my time but it just seemed wild, like I wanted to know way more about it just from the teaser.”

All of those questions took a backseat during Driedger’s first season in Seattle — and again when Driedger got the call to play for Team Canada.

But the curiosity remained. When Driedger tore his ACL, went home, and started what would become nine months of rehab, he needed a healthy place away from the rink to direct his ambitions. He’d already taken a personality aptitude test facilitated by former Jets defenceman Jay Harrison through the NHLPA. He’d spoken with personal strategists John Hierlihy and Duncan Fletcher, exploring business opportunities in real estate.

It was only after Driedger got hurt that he thought to mention the documentary to Hierlihy, who proved to be an invaluable resource.

“John immediately mentioned two or three people I should talk to. ‘This buddy of mine actually played in the league. This buddy of mine is a lawyer in film, he works for Paramount Plus — talk to him.’ It just opened up a treasure trove of contacts that I didn’t even know was out there,” Driedger says.”

As Driedger chased down those contacts and became even more invested in the process, his curiosity for Pro Beach Hockey continued to grow. He was fascinated by the league flying 60 professional hockey players to a luxurious California locale like Huntington Beach, where each team was given their own open bar with unlimited food and alcohol.

“Like, how does that play out?” he says, sounding fascinated. “You find out in the documentary. It’s complete chaos.”

The chaos was part blessing, part filmmaking challenge. At first, it was difficult for Cimperman to get interviews with some of the key voices for the documentary. Driedger’s theory is that Huntington Beach got a bit too wild for some athletes — not everybody wanted to revisit those days. But people he talked to about the documentary wanted to help. It turned out Bobby Ryan was a huge fan of Pro Beach Hockey when he was a kid, for example, and that Luc Robitaille and Pat Brisson — two of the biggest names in California hockey — played on the same roller hockey team back in the day. One by one, the pieces fell into place.

“We got Bobby on the documentary and he’s great. He has a cool appearance where he had a crush on the host of Pro Beach Hockey … Luc Robitaille is a big part of the documentary. He was playing on rollerblades all summer on the beaches and he felt that was a bit of his edge. Same with Pat Brisson, the super agent. He and Luke were on the same roller hockey team in the summer … They bring a lot of firepower to the doc and they’re both very well-spoken, very prominent people. I think it just adds a bit of legitimacy.”

At this point, “Pro Beach Hockey: Sun, Surf and Slapshots” is in its final stages of postproduction. Driedger, McCormick, and Cimperman are planning to release it later this year, capping off over three years of collaboration on a project that may not have come to fruition without Driedger’s knee injury. He missed almost an entire NHL season for Seattle. He has only played two NHL games since, but continues to carve out an AHL career.

Driedger’s on-ice career was in legitimate peril — ultimately leading him back to his hometown all of these years later. The Jets had been interested in Driedger for a while; it seems reasonable that they’ll be interested in his AHL mentorship and NHL experience again when the 30-year-old’s contract is up for renewal this summer. For his part, Driedger says he understands he has one shot to make an impression in Winnipeg, calling it a “dream” to play for his hometown team. He’s going to do everything he can to make the most of it, starting with his Winnipeg-themed mask.

There will be tributes to all of his minor hockey teams: the Fort Garry Flyers, the AA Twins, and AAA Monarchs. He hopes to have another opportunity to design a Winnipeg-themed mask next season, but knows more than most that nothing is promised in the NHL. He says he’s making the most of his time in Winnipeg, spending time with close family and friends, and continuing to push himself on the ice and off of it.

“There’s so many ups and downs in hockey. Sometimes things are going great, you’re playing fantastic, and you’re moving up. You’re playing in the minors and now you’re in the NHL and things are exciting. But everyone has down years where things aren’t going well. There’s injuries. It’s just a roller coaster ride, man, and I’ve found having something else going to keep me grounded is super, super helpful.”

Driedger understands that nothing is promised in film, either. He’s thrilled that athletes are starting to take media production into their own hands, but understands Sin Bin Studios won’t likely start its next project with the kind of budget Michael Jordan had for “The Last Dance” or David Beckham for “Beckham.”

“Max and I, we learn by doing,” he says. “The best way to learn is to go ahead, take the plunge, and go do it. It’s been a blast.”

(Top photo of Chris Driedger, Chris Cimperman and Max McCormick: Courtesy Jake Cimperman)