“Hockeyland,” a documentary chronicling the 2019-20 high school hockey seasons in Eveleth-Gilbert and Hermantown, gets Minnesota screenings this week. (Northland Films/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

DULUTH - It's the tale of two northern Minnesota high school boys hockey teams: one a storied but stalled program from a pocket of the Iron Range known as this country's hockey capital, the other a fresher force with an almost annual trip to the state Class A tournament.

"At some point back in the '90s, Eveleth and Hermantown crossed in the night, as Hermantown was on its way up and Eveleth was on its way down," author-journalist Aaron Brown says in "Hockeyland," a documentary chronicling both teams' 2019-20 season.

The movie, directed by Tommy Haines and produced by JT Haines and Andrew Sherburne, is the third in a hockey-themed series by Northland Films. It has played at film festivals in New York City and St. Louis and this week it will be shown to hometown audiences. "Hockeyland" plays Wednesday and Thursday at Zinema 2 in Duluth, Friday at Hibbing High School auditorium and Saturday at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis as part of the Great Northern Festival. The filmmakers and some players are expected to be in attendance at the screenings.

Tommy Haines said the idea came from a conversation with Neal Broten, a U.S. Olympian and former North Stars player who appeared in Haines' 2008 documentary "Pond Hockey." In it, Broten talks about playing for Roseau High School, the long treks to games in the Twin Cities alongside teammates he had known since he was 5 years old, then the reality that the era was over.

Haines said he wanted to find a way to document that — and decided on two teams with solid storylines and the potential to advance through playoffs.

Eveleth-Gilbert won the first Minnesota high school hockey tournament in 1945 and continued to produce top-level teams and athletes for decades. In 2019, the Golden Bears knew a consolidation with Virginia High School was on the horizon — that their jerseys would soon be obsolete. (They are now the Rock Ridge Wolverines.) The team had 15 seniors on the roster, led by the fiery, high-energy and high-scoring Elliot Van Orsdel.

For much of the film, the underdog Golden Bears eye the Hermantown Hawks with a theme of "slay the dragon."

Hermantown went into the 2019-20 season following a second-place finish in the section 7A tournament the previous year. Its senior captain, Blake Biondi — who would eventually win the state's Mr. Hockey award — had made a team-minded decision: He stuck around to play a final season with his lifelong buddies, rather than veering off to play juniors. Indio Dowd, a then-senior, is another focus. Also a top player, he is suffering with debilitating back pain and his mother is navigating cancer treatment.

The filmmakers seemingly have an all-access pass to both teams: the passenger seat of Van Orsdel's car, high school dances, the Dowds' couch, the parking lot where the boys send trucks fishtailing, and locker rooms.

Hawks' coach Patrick Andrews, who played for Hermantown in the late 1990s, said he hemmed and hawed about letting the filmmakers in. He ultimately decided it would be a cool experience for the team's seniors to have a chronicle of this finale.

Still, it wasn't comfortable.

"You're so vulnerable," Andrews said. "It's like you're standing naked in front of somebody. Those conversations in the locker room are very personal. It's like letting someone into your house."