Peter Berg may be known for expertly documenting the world of football, but hockey holds a special place for the actor/director.
“I played hockey as a kid. I was a better hockey player than I was a football player, and I enjoyed the sport more, so I’ve always had a personal interest and been a big fan of the sport,” he explains.
Marking 30 years as the “The Worldwide Leader in Sports,” ESPN celebrates its anniversary with a new series featuring 30 sports documentaries by leading filmmakers. “30 for 30” kicks off tonight with “Friday Night Lights” auteur Peter Berg’s “Kings Ransom,” a look at Aug. 9, 1988, one of the most shocking days in NHL (and Canadian) history: when Wayne Gretzky was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings.
“I was very fortunate to be able to get to know someone that existed at … that very rare level of athlete who is just so incredibly talented that it was very inspiring to me. I wanted to pay my respects to Wayne in his greatness,” Berg explains why he chose Gretzky as his subject.
Though the two have been pals for nearly 20 years (they struck up a friendship when Gretzky invited Berg to play his annual softball tournament) the director admits “The Great One” was a still little wary of the project.
“At first he really was into it, but then as he started reliving that experience and we were really dusting off the memories and dusting off the emotions, he realized it was such a key moment of his life, such a formative and pivotal moment of his life,” Berg says. “Wayne is a very humble, and in many ways, a very shy person who initially was interested but was certainly not chomping at the bit for this to happen.”