Champions: A Love Story

The film's screenplay was written by television writer and producer John Sacret Young, who himself was a former hockey player.^[2] Prior to writing the screenplay, Young had been unsuccessfully working as a novelist in Vermont.^[2] Commenting on the setting, Young said: "Skating is filled with stories that are very intense - the romances, the hatreds. I don't think that story's ever been told. Skating is a loose fraternity. They share something, the early morning practice, the rigorous training. It's like war veterans without the pall of death."^[3]

Young spent six months frequenting ice skating rinks in Colorado, and based many of the characters in the film real people he met there: "You go to any rink and 6 a.m. and here are these burly women in overcoats. They give their lives to this."^[2] Young was partly inspired to write the film after the 1961 Sabena Flight 548 plane crash that killed the entire U.S. Figure Skating team.^[2]

People magazine deemed the film a "surprisingly compelling 1979 TV movie."^[4] Jerry Buck of the Associated Press praised the film as "a warm story that bursts at the seams with vitality and life."^[5]