Tim Hogan Do Not Make This Film: N.B. film company considers Bathurst story

Dream Street Pictures Inc. says it is in preliminary stages of inspirational 'Boys in Red' film

Published Thursday March 25th, 2010

Click here to read original article in the Moncton Times Transcript

C4By Yvon Gauvin
Times & Transcript staff

A Moncton-based film and television company is considering producing an inspirational movie recounting how the Bathurst high school basketball team rose from devastation last year to capture the provincial championship trophy.

Dream Street Pictures Inc. producer Rick LeGuerrier said this week the company hasn't decided yet on whether or not to make the movie. It's still very much in the preliminary stages, he said, with more work and research needed before any final decision.

The Bathurst High Phantom boys basketball team lost seven members in a tragic highway crash outside Bathurst on Jan. 12, 2008.

A school teacher, the wife of the team's coach, was also killed.

The school was able to rebuild the team the following season and went on to win the 2009 AA provincial championships.

LeGuerrier said Dream Street Pictures produces movies with uplifting, inspiring stories, for example, the dramatic hockey mini-series Canada Russia '72 and the compelling, heart-warming movie Sticks & Stones which follows a 12-year-old Canadian hockey player's battle against the odds to organize a friendship hockey series and amend the poor treatment some U.S. players had received in Canada the previous year.

The Bathurst movie, if produced, would focus on the courage and determination of the basketball team, coaching staff and community after such a devastating loss.

Three Bathurst women, mothers of teenagers killed in the 2008 crash, don't want any New Brunswick taxpayers' money invested in any production surrounding the crash.

The women, Isabelle Hains, Marcella Kelly and Ana Acevedo, are upset that the provincial government hasn't implemented all of the recommendations from a coroner's inquest last spring into the crash, which included ensuring that all drivers of passenger vans used by school districts for extra-curricular activities have a Class 2 yellow school bus license.

The province cited lack of funds for not implementing all of the recommendations, they said.

It would be an "insult" to the memory of the dead teenagers if the province invested money in the company through Film NB while claiming they do not have enough funds to fulfill the recommendations from the inquest, said Kelly.

"We're letting it be known that we will do everything in our power to prevent Film NB from funding this project," said Hains.

Acevedo pointed out there are only 14 of these multi-passenger vans in the education department's fleet.

"How many unionized, Class 2 bus drivers could $250,000 put behind the wheels of one of these vehicles that are driving children to extra-curricular events?" she asked. "If the province funds this film, then we will know where its priorities are, and it's not in the safety of children," she said.