Some shoots are about the spotlight. Others are about the story behind it. This one was both — and it lived right here in Moncton.
Our team had the privilege of documenting the night the Moncton Wildcats took the ice in a custom jersey designed by Jack Livingstone, the winner of the Real Atlantic Superstore jersey design contest. Jack's design pulled directly from Acadian heritage and the Atlantic Ocean — visual language that means something specific here, and that doesn't translate the same way anywhere else in Canada.
All proceeds from the night went to PC Children's Charity, supporting hungry kids across the country. Community, sport, and creativity in the same frame. That's the kind of brief we'll take every time.
The Backstory — A Design That Couldn't Have Come From Anywhere Else
Jack's design wasn't a generic crest swap. The colours, the line work, the symbolism — it leaned into Acadian visual identity and the Atlantic. For viewers in Moncton, Dieppe, and across New Brunswick, the references read immediately. For viewers outside the region, they read as authenticity, which is exactly what brand partners look for when they invest in a community-led activation.
That's the thread we wanted to pull on with the camera: this jersey didn't get drafted in a marketing meeting in Toronto. It came from a kid with a sketchpad in the Maritimes. The job of the video was to make sure that came through in the cut.
A Jersey, a Charity, a Moment
The night had three storylines stacked on top of each other:
- The design contest — Jack as the protagonist, his sketches becoming a real piece of game-worn equipment.
- The Wildcats game — the team taking the ice in something custom, in front of a hometown crowd.
- The cause — proceeds flowing through to PC Children's Charity, framing the night as more than sport.
For a sports video shoot in Moncton, that's a lot to hold together in a single deliverable. The way we structured it was to let Jack carry the spine of the story and let the Wildcats and the charity be the consequence, not the headline. A teenage designer's sketch becomes 20 grown players on the ice for a cause — that's the arc.
Sports Video Production in Moncton — What This Job Actually Required
Shooting sports for brand is a different game than shooting sports for broadcast. Broadcast wants the play. Brand wants the player and the player's hands and the player's face and the player's locker-room walk. That meant our coverage looked like:
- Pre-game and warm-up access. The most cinematic moments in hockey are almost always the quiet ones. Stretches. Tape. Skates being laced. The first foot on the ice.
- Game-action coverage with a 70-200. Fast, long, compressed — letting the crowd blur into colour bands behind the skater.
- Off-ice with Jack. The designer side of the story — sketches, his reaction seeing the jersey on a real player for the first time, family in the stands.
- Brand-integrated detail shots. Real Atlantic Superstore signage, jersey close-ups against arena boards, charity callouts — captured in-camera rather than slapped on in post.
Sound on a hockey shoot is its own challenge — the arena ambience is part of the story, but it eats dialogue if you're not careful. We captured a clean room tone of the venue early, then layered it back in selectively under the interview cuts. Most viewers don't notice. That's the point.
Why Brands Choose Moncton for Sports + Community Storytelling
Real Atlantic Superstore — and Loblaw more broadly — could have produced this anywhere in Canada. They chose to do it in Moncton, New Brunswick, with a Maritime designer and a Maritime team. There's a lesson in that for any brand working on community-led campaigns.
Atlantic Canada audiences can tell the difference between a campaign shot here and a campaign shot somewhere that's pretending to be here. When the brief is regional, the production should be too — the locations, the crew, the talent, the visual references, the slang in the interview cuts. Authenticity isn't a treatment; it's the production schedule.
That's also why we work the way we do. LIF Media produces cinematic commercials, brand documentaries, event films, and social media content out of Moncton for clients across New Brunswick and Atlantic Canada, with a sweet spot for sports, community, and cause-driven storytelling. If your brief sits in that intersection, we'd love to see it.
Documenting Community Impact on Camera
The best part of the night wasn't the puck drop. It was Jack standing rinkside, watching grown athletes wear something he designed. There's no replacement for that footage. You can't recreate it in post. You either roll on it the moment it happens, or you miss it.
For a piece like this, the success metric isn't view count or grade work — it's whether Jack and his family watch the video twenty years from now and feel the same thing they felt in the arena that night. Everything else is in service of that.
Credits & Thanks
Huge thanks to Jack Livingstone for the design and the story, the Moncton Wildcats organization for the access, Real Atlantic Superstore for putting the whole thing on the ice, and PC Children's Charity for the cause that anchored the night. Privilege to roll camera on it.
Working on a sports, community, or cause-driven video in Moncton, New Brunswick, or anywhere in Atlantic Canada? Get in touch.