Hard as Puck

A motley crew of para ice hockey skaters fight to keep their grassroots sporting club on the rink in this stirring, often hilarious documentary.

The Perth-based Garden Island Pirates are the best para ice hockey team in Western Australia. There’s no competition … literally. A scrappy, mixed-gender group of amateurs, they strap on sledges to play against one another as stoically deadpan founder and would-be figure-skater Dan Perrett calls the shots from the sidelines. Booking the rink is half the trouble, and much of the group’s time away from it is spent negotiating volunteer committee positions and wrangling sponsorships. That all changes, however, when three women on the team earn the opportunity to represent Australia in its first ever appearance at the Women’s World Para Ice Hockey Championships in Slovakia. Scheduled to compete against heavyweights like Norway and the United States in a bruising, physically demanding sport, the newcomers aren’t given a snowflake’s chance in hell – but that doesn’t mean that they’re not about to go down swinging.

An affectionate portrait of a niche sporting institution and the weird and wonderful personalities who help it scrape by, Isaac Elliott’s debut documentary feature – supported by the MIFF Premiere Fund – is a laugh-out-loud edge-of-your-sled ride that brings together the underdog drive of Cool Runnings, the behind-the-scenes intrigue of Rats in the Ranks (MIFF 1996) and the irrepressible community spirit of The Golden Spurtle (MIFF 2025).

Hard as Puck received the Intrepid Audience Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival.