'Goalie' Actor Mark O'Brien Dives Into His NHL Season Preview and Canadiens Fandom

Mark O'Brien is immersed in the NHL, and not just because he played Terry Sawchuk in the 2019 film "Goalie." He shares his thoughts on the Canadiens, their rivals, how players break out in The Show and much more.

For most of his 39 years, actor, writer and director Mark O’Brien has loved hockey. Loved it hard and probably loved it harder after playing the starring role in the 2019 film, Goalie – an honest look into the life of hockey legend Terry Sawchuk. 

More than three years after the film was released, O’Brien – who won Best Actor at the eighth-annual Canadian Screen Awards for his work in the role – has an even greater appreciation for the people who play the game professionally, both now and in the past.

“That was probably the most impactful time of my life, personally and professionally, because I’m such a hockey nut,” O’Brien told THN.com in late August from his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. “I already knew all of Sawchuk’s stats. I knew everything about him from hockeydb.com or whatever. So it was a privilege. I got to know (Sawchuk’s) son Jerry pretty well. 

“I know a lot about hockey – I'm not a professional hockey player, but I know that I know enough about that lifestyle a little bit and understand what it means to play and to be able to see what it does to your body a little bit, too. To whatever degree, what happened to me was a much lesser (degree), but you get some reality with it.”

O’Brien began playing hockey at age seven in Newfoundland, and he has grown up to be a gigantic Montreal Canadiens fan. As he figures it, 45 percent of Newfoundland hockey fans support the Habs, 45 percent of them are Toronto Maple Leafs fans, and the remaining 10 percent gravitate to Original Six teams, such as the Boston Bruins.

But as O’Brien’s profile has grown, both at home in Canada and in his California home, he’s had the opportunity to play on the same line in charity games with Montreal icons Steve Shutt and Chris Nilan. His favorite player was Saku Koivu. 

“He was so steady, you always knew he was going to make the smart play and at the same time, he could dangle,” O’Brien said. He also has a particular fondness for Alexei Kovalev’s time in Montreal; his “skills were off the charts,” O’Brien said.

The affable O’Brien – who has been a devout reader of The Hockey News from his earliest days, when he would pick up copies of the magazine’s annual Yearbook and pore over every detail inside it – is such a hockey aficionado, he’s perfectly comfortable talking about things like his opinion of the hockey achievement he believes no athlete can ever hope to come near, let alone match and exceed.

“No one seems to talk about this much, but I think the most unbeatable record in sports history is Glenn Hall’s 502 consecutive games started as a goalie,” O’Brien said. “It’s not even in the realm of possibility to ever be even remotely beatable.” 

O’Brien added that even if a current NHL goalie plays 12 games in a row, they're usually sat for a rest. But to see Hall and Sawchuk play through so much is impressive in his eyes.

“(Sawchuk) played with a broken foot one whole season. He had his fingers slashed. A skate went over him when he was covering the puck one game. And to just go through it because you were expected to…that mentality of eat-or-be-eaten was fascinating to me. I was like, ‘Man, these guys are tough.’ ”

“Everyone talks about how they don’t have an elite player right now, but you don’t know who’s going to be an elite player.” - Mark O’Brien on the Montreal Canadiens

O’Brien’s is also savvy enough to understand and appreciate the machinations of the business, including the work done by Canadiens PR chief Chantal Machabee, Habs GM Kent Hughes and president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton.

“What a delicate balance it is to handle the scrutiny, to handle the interest, and also be willing to take risks and be able to not listen to the fan base too much, and go, ‘We’re just going to go ahead and do this,’ ” O’Brien said, making specific reference to the drafting of young Canadiens Juraj Slafkovsky and David Reinbacher. 

“It’s a delicate balance, and I don’t think they get enough credit. Chantal Machabee is doing a great job. And Kent Hughes and Jeff Gordon, they allow the public in on enough information, like when they were going to trade Ben Chiarot, it was like, ‘Hey, we’re going to trade Ben Chiarot,’ so it’s never lost on me, the balance that’s needed when I meet anybody in the hockey world who has established themselves the way that these people have.”

O’Brien is a serious student of the game, and that means he sees the NHL from a macro perspective, not just as a Habs devotee. Over the years, he’s seen undrafted players, inside and outside of Montreal, assert themselves as game-changers. That’s what keeps him optimistic the Canadiens are going to have at least a few of their youngsters develop into elite performers very soon.

“Everyone talks about how they don’t have an elite player right now,” O’Brien said of the Canadiens, “but you don’t know who’s going to be an elite player. Olli Jokinen took five years, and then he was all of a sudden an all-star; I know that’s dating myself a little bit, but it happens all the time. Brad Marchand was a 25-goal scorer for five years, and then he became a 100-point, point-per-game type of player. You just don’t really know. 

“What I see is that there’s a lot of smarts (in Montreal). I mean, Nick Suzuki, he’s capable of a point per game, and maybe more, but it’s the way he handles himself at both ends of the ice that makes him great. And he’s playing with Caufield, who’s pro-rated at a 50-goal rate. And even Slafkovsky, I love that draft pick because (there’s) a unique toolkit that you don’t normally find. Who cares if he doesn’t hit it until he’s 24?”

“Other sports, they’re captured so well at times, and hockey is a hard sport to film. It’s technically and physically difficult to get on that ice and really capture it.” - Mark O'Brien

For O’Brien, who directed the 2021 film The Righteous and who had a recurring role on HBO’s recent Perry Mason series, the beauty of pro hockey is the balance between young and old players – 18-year-old kids working with veterans often twice their age – and the always-changing power balance amongst the NHL’s haves-and-have-not-teams.

Ask him what he’s looking forward to in the upcoming NHL season, and O’Brien will answer like he’s a correspondent for The Hockey News.

“I really like it being different all the time,” O’Brien said. “I really like seeing all of a sudden, ‘Oh, that team is great.’ I’m always curious about the young guys, but I love seeing an older player step up – like (Florida star defenseman Brandon) Montour all of a sudden has 73 points. 

“But I love watching the young guys. Like, (Connor) Bedard – Chicago made some smart moves by getting guys like Taylor Hall and some other vets in around him because they obviously sold off everything last year, but I’m so curious to watch him. And I’m so curious to see (Blue Jackets center Adam) Fantilli and (Anaheim pivot Leo) Carlsson.”

O’Brien is also curious about certain teams. Center David Krejci leaving the aging Boston Bruins will hurt more than it might seem, he said. He is one of many onlookers who aren't sure which direction the Winnipeg Jets will take. The Los Angeles Kings have some question marks in net but will surprise a lot of people. Then there are the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“Look, as a Habs fan, I do not dislike the Leafs,” he said. “They’re trying everything, they’re doing all the things they should do, but it just for some reason is not working. And I think they’re gripping their sticks too tight. But that’s just what I think.”

Finally, getting O’Brien’s opinion on hockey movies will show you he’s seen virtually every hockey film – and this is a guy who isn’t shy to tell you he was raised on the Mighty Ducks movies. He yearns to one day make a film in Canada about his beloved sport. O’Brien wants to capture the essence of the game in a way he hasn’t seen it captured thus far.

“I will say this – I can’t really name one (film) that fully captured it,” O’Brien said. “Other sports, they’re captured so well at times, and hockey is a hard sport to film. It’s technically and physically difficult to get on that ice and really capture it.

“That’s why I was excited by Goalie, because it wasn’t trying to be that,” O’Brien continued. “Because it’s a huge hill to climb. Goalie was, ‘Here’s a poetic version of a life and what it takes to continue in that business, in that sport, and it can devour you. And how challenging that can be, and appreciating the things you do have.’ ”

O’Brien is like every other working actor and writer these days, dealing with the direct results of the Writer’s Guild of America and the Screen Actors’ Guild’s strikes that have shut down all operations of TV and film production in North America and beyond. He takes some of his free time to play hockey at least two times a week, even in the summertime. Now that he’s immersed himself in the game about as much as you ever can when you’re not a paid player, O’Brien feels and can speak to a link between his job as an artist and the job of a pro hockey player and the reasons why the writers’ and actors’ unions all are demonstrating solidarity.

“We’re all in it for the right reasons,” O’Brien said of both hockey players and those from the artistic world. “It’s not to go home rich – it’s to get what’s your fair due. And it’s similar to a lot of those players – Jonathan Marchessault and Arber Xhekaj, all these guys who weren’t drafted, (Martin) St-Louis, (David) Desharnais – these guys played in the AHL, the ECHL, fourth-line minutes, and they just kept going. Everybody has to go through something challenging like that at some point. Whether it’s public or not, we all face it. So that’s kind of what we’re facing right now (with the strike) and we just have to hang in there, you know?”