Ashton James is shown in this undated handout still from the film “Youngblood.” The movie debuts on Friday.HO/The Canadian Press
During the 2020 world junior hockey championship, as teen phenoms tore up the ice, Ashton James was on his couch feeling exposed.
He had just begun training to star in a Black-led Canadian remake of the 1986 cult hockey drama Youngblood, and every highlight reel only magnified how far he still had to go.
“All I felt was dread over how bad I was,” James said. “I was like, ’I can’t engage with this until I get better because every time I watch it, I get depressed.’”
When he confessed that to writer-director Charles Officer, the acclaimed Toronto filmmaker – a former player himself – wasn’t having it.
“He was like, ‘I’m not going to be kind about it. You have to do this work,’” recalls James, who led last year’s Toronto hip-hop drama Boxcutter.
“He told me to treat this as an athlete. He said, ‘You’re a good actor, but I want you to live this. It’s like real-life dream chasing.’”
After Officer became ill and later died in 2023, his directive took on new weight.
What was meant to be three months of training stretched into more than three years as production paused. In that time, James kept doing the work – skating, lifting and working with elite prospects at Intek High Performance in Toronto. He also spoke with young Black players about navigating a sport that remains overwhelmingly white.
Then there was the locker-room parlance.
Director Charles Officer speaks onstage at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival screening of ‘Akilla’s Escape’ at West Island Open Air Cinema at Ontario Place on September 12, 2020 in Toronto.Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
“You’re in that space and it’s a different language,” explains the St. Lucian-Canadian actor. “These guys are like, ‘Hey, let’s go, boys!’ I’d never said ‘boys’ a day in my life. I needed to find out how that actually sits in my mouth in a way that doesn’t feel racist to me.”
The new Youngblood, out Friday, attempts to modernize hockey’s mythology by redrawing its blue lines around masculinity, race and individuality.
Way before Crave’s Heated Rivalry helped push hockey culture beyond old-school ideas of toughness and emotional restraint, Officer was developing a version of Youngblood that hip-checked those inherited norms.
The original starred Rob Lowe as Dean Youngblood, a gifted but slight player who had to learn to fight in order to make it to the big leagues. In this version, James’ Youngblood is a Black forward with a volatile edge – and the real battle is learning restraint.
After Officer’s death, director Hubert Davis stepped in to carry the film forward.
“[Officer’s] take was embedded in the script from the beginning,” said Davis. “It was about re-examining what masculinity is – what we think it is and what it has to be.”
Davis said Officer was a close friend and mentor who encouraged him to direct 2022’s Black Ice, a documentary about the experiences of Black Canadians in hockey.
He calls Youngblood an homage to Officer, whose vision was to interrogate the sport’s rigid codes.
Dean clashes with his domineering father, played by Blair Underwood, who raised him on a doctrine of grit and aggression.
“It always intrigues me to see people of colour in a very unexpected light,” said Underwood, who broke out in NBC’s L.A. Law.
“I think definitely in America, it’s surprising to a lot of people that there are Black people in the sport of hockey.”
While Dean’s race isn’t central to the storyline, he has a crucial scene where he expresses that he’s been treated differently in the sport for as long as he can remember.
“We just needed to say it – for all the other players that are still out there, and who came before, that don’t get to address it because it’s not a comfortable space for them,” said Davis.
James connected with Black Canadian prospects such as Zayde Wisdom and Kyle Bollers to understand that tension.
“I was figuring out what it’s like to be someone who’s proudly Black in a space that doesn’t necessarily help you elevate that,” James said.
Dean is rebuked by his team captain for over-celebrating a goal – a pointed parallel to the scrutiny Black Canadian star P.K. Subban faced for his exuberant scoring moments during his time in the NHL.
“Hockey is so uniform. How does someone who isn’t of that culture fit into that?”
Beyond that is the film’s broader question of masculinity – not just who gets to show personality, but what kind of man the sport expects you to be.
Davis said he wanted to delve deeper than the sports films he grew up on in the eighties, which often had the same plot: “There’s a training sequence, the guy fights another guy at the end and he’s stronger than him.”
Dean’s journey to shed his pugilistic tendencies reflects the NHL’s new normal: fighting in the league has dropped to a historic low as it prioritizes player safety.
At the same time, Davis asks, how safe can the sport really get when physical danger remains part of its appeal?
“I think that’s what the NHL is struggling with right now: how do we control this? It’s inherent to what has made it so popular and how you play. There’s no way around that.”