CBC: Film on Bathurst basketball team planned: Mother of victim opposes TV movie production

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Last Updated: Friday, March 19, 2010

A Moncton, N.B., film production company hopes to make a TV movie about the Bathurst High School basketball team's 2009 championship win, achieved a year after the school was shaken by a van crash that killed eight people.

The boys team won the New Brunswick Interscholastic Athletic Association championship in 2009, a year after the highway collision killed seven members of the previous year's team and their coach's wife.

Tim Hogan, president of Moncton's Dream Street Pictures, said the movie wouldn't focus on the crash but on the young team that courageously emerged from the tragedy.

"To come from where they have come from and be able to pull of a championship is an amazing story and very inspirational," Hogan said.

Hogan, originally from Bathurst, said the feat engineered by the basketball players and coaches was "incredible."

Hogan said the movie is just an idea right now and the production is a long way from being a done deal.

He said his company will consult with the community and approach the story respectfully.

Mother upset

Ana Acevedo (left) said she's upset that a television movie is being planned on the Bathurst High School basketball team. (Andrew Vaughn/Canadian Press)But for Ana Acevedo, who lost her son Javier in the crash, she said the idea of making a movie out of the accident and the triumph of the next year's team is upsetting.

"It's time for them to leave us in peace. We need to heal ourselves and we need to move ahead a little bit. But with them coming back with those activities, we can't do it," Acevedo said.

"They keep throwing it back for anything, but to me there is no story. Without what happened, there is no story. There is no grounds for a movie."

Acevedo has spoken out many times since her son's death, criticizing the New Brunswick government and the school district for what she says were unsafe travel practices.

The team's 15-passenger van collided with a transport truck on Jan. 12, 2008, near the exit to Bathurst. The accident sparked a coroner's inquest in 2009 that came back with 24 recommendations to improve the safety of students being transported to extracurricular events, especially during the winter.

Dream Street Pictures is working with the CBC on the TV movie idea. The broadcaster works with hundreds of production companies to develop ideas for programs, but only a few go into production.