My parents are from the former Soviet Union, from Ukraine, and I grew up wanting to be a professional hockey player.

In the U.S., coaches could be the father next door. They had no formal training. They're like old hockey players. They don't go to school and study.

I'm American and I wanted my friend and people to see ' Red Army' . I didn't want it to be a film for Russia, although I did show it there and they absolutely loved it.

I don't want to get into being too hockey centered, but I just felt like the late 70's and 80's into the 90's was the right time period to tell the story.

My parents are from the former Soviet Union, from Ukraine, and I grew up wanting to be a professional hockey player.

Growing up, I didn't know very much about my heritage and the Soviet Union and things of that nature. But when I saw the Soviet Union play hockey for the first time, to me, it was profound.

I found a lot of stuff that's never been seen before. That was the goal: to not use cliché Cold War footage but give people a sense of the place and setting. It's a field you still need. At first it was a lot of fun, and then later it became a little bit intimidating. "Oh my God, I've got so much footage. Where am I going to put it? What am I going to do?" I ended up really only reviewing about 20 to 30 percent of what I had. So it was a task.