Olympic Channel’s Five Rings Films presents The Nagano Tapes documentary

The story behind the Czech Republic’s heroic upset at the Olympic Winter Games Nagano 1998 in men’s ice hockey is featured in The Nagano Tapes, the first film in the Olympic Channel’s signature series Five Rings Films. Five Rings Films is a five-episode series of incisive and entertaining documentaries directed by some of the biggest names in film from around the world.

The feature-length documentary, The Nagano Tapes, premieres worldwide on 28 February 2018 on the Olympic Channel on olympicchannel.com and its mobile apps, in addition to telecasts on NBCSN in the United States, Eurosport in Europe and beIN Sports in MENA.

The Nagano Tapes features the classic men´s ice hockey tournament of the Olympic Winter Games 1998 in Nagano, Japan, where professional players from the NHL participated in the Games for the first time. Among the many “Dream Teams”, the underdog squad from the Czech Republic led by Jaromír Jágr and Dominik Hašek stunned the world on its way to a historic gold. Their triumph in Nagano is recognised as a defining moment and a source of national pride at a time of resurgence for the country.

Directed by Sundance award winner Ondřej Hudeček from the Czech Republic, The Nagano Tapes features never-before-seen IMAX footage and exclusive International Olympic Committee (IOC) archive material.

Bringing the documentary to life are interviews with some of the world’s best ice hockey players who relive their experience in precise detail, including the Czech Republic’s Dominik Hašek, JaromÍr Jágr and Petr Svoboda, Canada’s Theo Fleury, Eric Lindros and Marc Crawford (coach), the USA’s Brett Hull and the Russian Federation’s Alexei Yashin.

“Many people in the Czech Republic treasure this story like a scripture,” said Hudeček. “To me personally, it brings back the memories of a 10-year-old kid inspired to see the world around him as a much smaller place, and I wanted to weave all of these threads into a film that could be relevant and fun to watch for everyone — not just hockey fans.”

The Nagano Tapes is the first film in the Olympic Channel’s signature documentary series Five Rings Films, produced exclusively for the global media platform by Hollywood legend Frank Marshall (Jason Bourne, Jurassic World and Indiana Jones) and Mandalay Sports Media (MSM).

Future films in the exclusive Olympic Channel series include La Lucha directed by Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, Patriots Day), which will focus on the iconic Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson, a three-time Olympic gold medallist who famously turned down USD 5 million to fight Muhammad Ali, and the man responsible for his greatest achievements, the legendary coach Alcides Sagarra Caron.