Breaking: The top-ranked veteran forward for the Colorado Avalanche has officially signed a two-year contract to join the Tampa Bay Lightning, therefore ending his tenure with the team. However…

Saving Sakic’ Trailer: How A Hollywood Action Pic

Helped Save An NHL Franchise

Here’s the setting: Denver, summer 1997. The NHL’s Colorado Avalanche is struggling to afford keeping its marquee star and captain Joe Sakic from free agency. Enter President Harrison Ford.

Here is the first trailer for Saving Sakic, an hourlong documentary about the fascinating tale of how the hit action flick Air Force One helped save a hockey club that had relocated to the Rockies just a couple of years earlier. Check it out above.

Sakic was a star with the Quebec Nordiques for seven seasons, before the franchise left Canada for Colorado. The new team won the Stanley Cup in its first season but had lost millions of dollars in the process. Sakic’s contract was up before the 1997-98 season, and the deep-pocketed New York Rangers were eager to replace their future Hall of Fame leader Mark Messier, who had signed with another team.

The Original Six club then made Sakic an offer sheet he couldn’t refuse: a three-year, $21 million deal with an eye-popping $15 million upfront signing bonus. The Avalanche had seven days to match it. So it seemed the star center was bound for Broadway.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Garden: Air Force One. Comsat, the corporation that owned the Avalanche, produced the movie, and its $315 million worldwide gross infused the company with the cash it need to keep Sakic. He played the rest of his career for the team, helping it to win another Cup in 2001.

Saving Sakic is directed by Jay Nelson, with Steve Mayer, Ross Bernard, and Craig Axelrod for exec producing for NHL Productions and Gary Cohen for Triple Threat TV. It hits ESPN+ on April 17, a day after bowing on Prime Video in the hockey-mad Great White North.