KOCH Vision and CBC were able to scramble and quickly put together a DVD documenting Canada’s success at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey called It’s Our Game in a matter of a couple months. It was released in mid-December-just in time to be scooped up by rabid hockey fans and mothers shopping for their hockey-deprived families just before Christmas.

This DVD has everything one would expect from modern sports documentaries: an excess of drama, a behind-the-scenes look at the featured team, and an action-filled look at the team’s rise to glory. The first disc of this two-DVD set was an emotional look into the team’s march to the championship, while the second was the final game between Canada and Finland in its entirety in widescreen format, which gave it the feel of a feature film.

As one would expect, the documentary is accompanied by orchestrated music that is meant to tug at the heartstrings of the viewer, as well as reflective commentary that makes it seem like the players in the tournament just survived a vicious war. These are both necessary evils unfortunately, as human beings are creatures that relish drama, and who like videos that almost draw them into the action and make them feel emotionally attached to the subject.

It was a nice touch by the makers of this DVD to include the CBC broadcast of the whole final game in the set, not just footage from it like many other shitty highlight videos do. One of the only drawbacks was that this version of the broadcast did not include the scoreboard that is present in the top corner of the screen during live games, which is probably due to the fact that the scoreboard would have appeared extremely stretched due to the widescreen formatting.

Another annoying omission was the intermission footage. Viewers do not get to see Don Cherry or Ron MacLean on the disc and are not privy to any important information that was given to viewers during these breaks in play. What is a hockey DVD without “The Don”?

As for bonus features, this DVD includes a complete roster of Team Canada, as well as profiles of Vincent Lecavalier, Mario Lemieux, and others. This provides another avenue for fans to connect on a personal level with members of the team.

The World Cup of Hockey 2004 DVD functions very well as a sports documentary. It includes nice features that one wouldn’t usually expect and does not have any significant flaws. These discs do not chart any new territory or set precedents as far as their genre goes, but they function well within the previously defined parameters of the sports documentary.