by Jamie Henry
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Daniel Perrett, Belinda Green, Mike Frances, Rosa-Lee Principe, Cliff Nutt, Dawn Watt
Intro:
Here, the reality is messier, funnier and considerably more human.
A para ice hockey team in Perth might not be the first thing that springs to mind when considering Australia’s sporting landscape, but the Garden Island Pirates have a story worth telling. In Isaac Elliott’s Hard as Puck, what begins as a portrait of a small club struggling to stay afloat becomes a funny, chaotic and unexpectedly moving exploration of community, competition and the people who refuse to give up on something they love.
Filmed over four years, the documentary follows the Pirates as they contend with financial pressures, personality clashes, club politics and a shortage of opponents. Keeping a grassroots sporting organisation running is difficult enough without having to worry about where the next game will come from. For the Pirates, the obstacles extend well beyond the ice rink.
What makes Hard as Puck so engaging is its refusal to settle for the conventional inspirational sports documentary. Elliott, a wheelchair user and adapted motocross rider himself, has little interest in presenting his subjects as saints or reducing their experiences to a lesson in overcoming adversity. Instead, he allows them to be complicated, competitive, funny and occasionally frustrating people. Their disability is part of their lives, but it isn’t the entirety of their story.
The club’s internal dramas provide plenty of opportunities for humour, while the personalities at its centre give the film its emotional weight. There are practical problems to solve, disagreements to navigate and relationships to maintain, all against the backdrop of a sport that demands considerable skill and commitment. The result feels less like a carefully polished sporting fable and more like an honest look at what happens when a group of people try to make something work together.
The stakes rise when three women from the club earn the opportunity to represent Australia at the inaugural Women’s World Para Ice Hockey Championships in Slovakia. The journey from a small Perth club to the international stage gives the documentary a natural sense of momentum, while bringing the players’ ambitions into sharper focus. Their achievement is significant, but Elliott never loses sight of the collective effort that helped make it possible.
Para ice hockey itself offers a compelling sporting spectacle, with athletes competing from sledges using specialised sticks. Yet the film’s appeal extends well beyond the action. Its most interesting questions concern what sustains a sporting community: the hours of unpaid work, the compromises, the inevitable clashes and the shared belief that what they are building matters.
Winner of the Intrepid Audience Award at the 2026 Melbourne International Film Festival, Hard as Puck offers a welcome alternative to the familiar sporting narrative in which adversity exists only to be conquered, and every setback eventually leads to triumph. Here, the reality is messier, funnier and considerably more human.
Ultimately, Hard as Puck understands that the value of grassroots sport isn’t measured exclusively by the scoreboard. Sometimes, the real achievement is keeping the club alive, getting your teammates onto the ice and finding a reason to come back next week.
