The Last Gladiators

Synopsis /

In ice hockey, no one is more feared than the enforcer. These blue-collar players have one reason to be on the ice: to protect their guys, no matter what the cost—to themselves or others. For Chris Nilan, once the most tenacious enforcer in the National Hockey League, that meant a shattered body, addiction to drugs, and harming the people closest to him. But in the process, the Boston tough guy won the adoration of hockey’s holy city, Montreal, and earned everlasting glory by helping win the Stanley Cup. Through interviews with a generation of hockey’s most hard-bitten tough guys, the film explores what it means to grow up from carefree games on icy ponds to enforcing the unspoken code of the NHL.