Overview: Ten-year-old Dani Rylan was obsessed with hockey and dreamed of growing up to play in the NHL. As one of the best players on the Florida state junior team, Dani saw no reason not to have the same ambitions as everyone else. But, as the only girl on the team, at some point, reality sets in.

Seventeen years later, Dani decided to change the history of the sport by founding the first professional women’s hockey league. Take the Ice goes behind the scenes as Dani creates the National Women’s Hockey League and 88 elite female athletes compete to win it’s first championship.

As Dani struggles to keep the league afloat, the players must come together in the wake of an on-ice accident that leaves their teammate paralyzed.

Take the Ice is a moving, intimate story of a group of world-class athletes making strides for recognition and equality, and in the process, making history.

DVD Verdict: Directed by Rachel Koteen, and produced by Rachel Koteen, Batya Feldman, and Judah-Lev Dickstein, and inclusive of female ice hockey players such as Dani Rylan Kearney, Denna Laing, Molly Engstrom and Anya Packer, amongst others, Take The Ice is a sports documentary that perfectly showcases to what lengths Dani herself went to, to change the history of the sport by founding the first professional National Women’s Hockey League.

This was in 2015 and was done so as an investor-funded, four-team league, and as much as what we are viewing is primarily all about one person’s determination to make real a dream she missed out on growing up, so that others like her didn’t have to, the origins of the league admittedly scuffled at times and was later rebranded as the PHF. Indeed, the subsequent PWHPA was formed in 2019 in the fallout of the CWHL demise.

But those facts are neither here nor there, as Take The Ice hones in on a ten-year-old Dani Rylan, a young girl obsessed with hockey and who dreamed of growing up to play in the NHL. But as we know, that just didn’t happen, but instead of backfooting it into the shadows, Dani choose to keep her head held high, to keep wondering, to keep dreaming, and never, ever to back down from what her heart desired. For as she herself acknowledges, “One of the first things you learn in hockey is to fall and get back up.”

Even for a non-sports fan such as myself, the documentary was both wholly impassioned and impressively detailed, in such a way that even I have to admit that I was glued to every word, every obstacle, every challenge, every misdirection, every hope, and every dream realized along the way of this simply incredible new celluloid vision.

As for the dire moments when the league’s founder struggles to keep the business afloat, along with a most heartbreaking accident when one of the players is involved in an on-ice accident that leaves her paralyzed, I won’t go into those, as they are for your eyes, ears and minds to view alone.

In closing, I have now watched this documentary twice in three days and have to say that yes, there are still times I’m not totally sure who someone is and/or how they relate to the story or a team, in general, but to watch along and be a fly on the wall, thus viewing how the very first season of professional women’s hockey began to take shape, well, that was one very immersive experience.

Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired Global VOD rights to the sports documentary TAKE THE ICE.

TAKE THE ICE will be available to rent/own on all digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms worldwide, as well as on DVD, starting on July 25th, 2023, through Freestyle Digital Media.

“We’re so excited to have Freestyle Digital Media as our distribution partner for TAKE THE ICE,” said filmmaker Rachel Koteen. “Sharing the stories of these trail-blazing female athletes with a wide audience was our goal in making the movie. The competitive spirit and athletic prowess on display will be entertaining to sports fans and non-sports fans alike. And anyone who has ever worked hard to achieve a dream will be moved by this tale of teamwork and determination in the face of adversity.”

Official Trailer