From Bill Brioux of the Canadian Press:

• CBC movie The Phantoms revisits aftermath of fatal high school van crash
  The film never shows the accident, in which the wife of a coach also died. It’s all about what came next for the surviving players, teachers and others. Improbably, the Bathurst High Phantoms rebounded in 2009 to win the New Brunswick provincial high school varsity basketball title. Read more.

From Karissa Donkin of the Toronto Star:

• The Phantoms movie: Bathurst, N.B. moms criticize basketball movie for exploiting sons’ deaths
  Marcella Kelly doesn’t read newspapers or listen to the radio much these days. When she goes out in the small city of Bathurst, in northern New Brunswick, she does only what she needs to do and comes home again. Tuning out is how she gets through living what has become her nightmare. Kelly lost her 15-year-old son Nikki in a bus crash that’s the basis for a new movie showing Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBC called The Phantoms. Read more.

From CBC:

• Phantoms movie captures ‘courage’ of Bathurst
  People in Bathurst are awaiting the release of a new television movie that chronicles how the Bathurst High School basketball team’s 2009 championship season helped heal a grieving city. Read more.

From Reuben Villagracia of the Chronicle Journal:

• Telling the Phantoms story
  Alex Robichaud is confident the producers of a CBC movie based on a tragedy that he was involved in will be handled with care when it premieres this weekend. The first-year Lakehead Thunderwolves guard was a prominent member of the Bathurst, N.B., Phantoms high school senior boys basketball team that helped a town heal from its grief following a road accident in January 2008. Read more.

From John Doyle of the Globe and Mail:

• The Phantoms: A moving tale of healing after tragedy
  When the production was announced, there were concerns expressed that the TV movie was coming too soon after the 2008 tragedy that struck the small New Brunswick community. Some thought that even a reminder of the crash and its impact might be exploitative. It isn’t. The Phantoms (Andrew Wreggitt wrote the script and Sudz Sutherland directed) is a well-crafted family movie, one that’s emphatically about triumphing over adversity. It’s heartwarming without being superficial. Read more.