Ice Cross: Life on the Edge

photography by Lukáš Matocha / @lukasmatocha

AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON AMAZON PRIME

In a world saturated with mainstream sports and million-dollar athletes, one of the most thrilling, dangerous, and raw competitions on the planet has been largely hidden in plain sight. Imagine a full-contact blend of downhill skiing, ice hockey, and BMX racing. Now picture it happening at blistering speeds on slick, narrow ice tracks carved through ski resorts, urban landscapes, and even iconic venues like Fenway Park. That’s Ice Cross: chaotic, beautiful, and absurdly intense. It’s the most insane sport you’ve never seen.

Born in the early 2000s and thrust into public view by the Red Bull Crashed Ice series, Ice Cross is part extreme sport, part traveling circus, and part survival story. A flurry of athletes hurl themselves shoulder-to-shoulder through sharp icy corners, gravity-defying jumps, and race against more than just the clock—they battle each other, the course, and the sport’s uncertain future. With Red Bull’s departure as a title sponsor and the subsequent drop in exposure, Ice Cross began to fade from public consciousness before it had a chance to acquire its fair share of real estate in the sports world. But those still involved—skaters, fans, organizers—refuse to let it die. Merely keeping the sport alive was yet another unique challenge these athletes have to face. 

Among them were two longtime friends, Brittan and DJ, who, despite no formal background in filmmaking, decided to capture the grit, passion, and revival of this sport on film. Brittan and DJ have been best friends since DJ moved here from Mississippi 11 years ago. As if it were fate, the two met through a mutual friend, who had been introduced to DJ and soon after told Brittan, “I met your best friend the other night”. Fast forward a couple of months, that same friend saw DJ from across the bar while Brittan was out one night and initiated the introduction. 

“And we have been best friends ever since,” Brittan added. “We just have a similar mindset. DJ is a former athlete, and I am a current athlete. So we both took what we learned in sports and applied it to the real world. You just kind of look at life a little differently and you know you need a good team. You know how to be a good team teammate.”

Brittan, a former hockey player turned Ice Cross competitor, introduced DJ to the sport, blowing his mind with the high-speed, heart-pounding spectacle. By this time, Brittan had been doing Ice Cross for a handful of years and in that short amount of time, the sport faced a mountain of adversity. With the 2021 season cancelled due to COVID, the athletes returned from their hiatus to find the sport was a shell of itself. In the blink of an eye, Ice Cross had gone from races in Fenway Park to a small crowd of supporters huddled at the bottom of empty ski resorts. 

“Man, this sport is way too good. The athletes are way too good and the characters are way too good to not be out there,” DJ stated after Brittan got him engaged with the sport. The passion displayed by the athletes to keep this sport alive was inspiring, but they were ultimately doing so without an audience to inspire. They both knew they had stumbled upon something special—something that deserved to be seen. But how do two guys with no experience and no crew make a documentary?

Enter Chase Cooper, DJ’s friend and an aspiring filmmaker who was already working on an extreme sports documentary himself. After seeing a few clips and hearing the pair’s intriguing pitch, he agreed that Ice Cross had an extraordinary x-factor; a story that deserved to be told. Cooper and his team didn’t jump in or take over—instead, they offered Brittan and DJ a blueprint: advice on production, story structure, equipment, and even ideas of how to pitch to investors. What followed was a crash course in documentary filmmaking built on YouTube tutorials, trial and error, and sheer willpower and determination.

Brittain, with a successful background in business, realized that launching this project was akin to starting a company. Initially aiming to create a limited series about the sport, they became aware of the challenges in producing this independently, learning they are often more difficult to market and generate revenue. Consequently, they opted to make a documentary film instead. They aimed to compile the story to present to potential investors and, fortunately,

Brittan’s gym and hockey community provided support from a network willing to invest in first-time filmmakers. This grueling process laid the groundwork for the film while simultaneously bolstering their confidence and enthusiasm for the project. 

Once they secured their funding, the two immediately got to work; and it was a baptism by fire from day one. The night before they started production for the following day’s race, the duo were introduced to their team of videographers when making a pit stop during their 27-hour road trip to pick them up at an airport in Wisconsin. The crew had a sprinter van loaned to them by a friend of

Brittan, that acted as home base and command center throughout their domestic journey. As they spent their first few hours as a production team together driving through a blinding blizzard en route to the first race of the season, it became apparent that they all needed to get on the same page and get there fast. 

“The videographers are now asking DJ questions like, ‘What's the storyline we're going for?’ and ‘What are we trying to shoot?’” Brittan recounted. 

Questions to which DJ eloquently replied, “Well, you know, we're just gonna shoot stuff. Y'all gonna have to talk to the other guys about [the technical side of filmmaking],” he laughs. “We hired them because we don't know videography stuff, we don't know aspect ratios, frames per a second, etc.” 

Although DJ could not initially communicate the technical aspects of videography when directing his crew, he knew exactly the right positions throughout the track to capture the shots they were looking for. As the first races started to progress, the team slowly picked up on best practices and how to record these athletes as they quickly twist and turn down the mountain. 

“You know, it's hard as shit, but if you really want it, you can literally do anything. It's about the entrepreneurial spirit and love of art,” Brittan explained. “That's also part of the fun of it, too, I think … I had a passion for the sport of Ice Cross and so did DJ and everything like that … We wanted to see it grow, and that's what led us to make the film. Then throughout the process of making the film, both DJ and myself found a passion for filmmaking. It was one of those things where it was like, ‘okay, this is a fucking cool process.’ Even though it was really, really hard and there were a lot of times where we were just like, ‘Fuck, should we just hire somebody else to do this?’ I mean, it was so tedious.”

Due to the intense nature of the Ice Cross season, travel and tour, Brittan and DJ stated they hardly watched a single minute of footage throughout the actual shooting of the documentary. They were essentially jotting down a story and script on the fly, editing the story in their mind’s eye as they navigated their way through the tour. This provided Brittan with an opportunity to be acutely intentional and present as an athlete, while taking mental notes of important moments throughout his races. This shifted more weight and responsibilities over for DJ to carry as the season began to pick up steam.

Although Brittan is a shining focal point, he is one player among a rare breed of Ice Cross athletes who are featured over the course of the film. Each of their individual stories play a crucial role in the narrative of the sport, and sharing their experience with the world was a pivotal role that DJ was intimidated by at the start of this process. 

“I’d never interviewed anybody in my life,” DJ remembers saying to Brittan. In a formal sense, this was very true, but Brittan was quick to remind DJ that he has been informally interviewing strangers for years. Before he was in the documentary business, DJ was running a successful roofing business leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. He then left the roofing company and started driving Uber and Lyft 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week for an entire year before starting his next venture. DJ reflects on that time as a key moment in his life where he relied on his positivity and character to make the most out of a suboptimal situation.

“I mean, there was a moment where I was technically homeless for two months. I was living out of my car and Airbnbs. Those were my strongest days. They weren't my weakest days. They weren't the days where I said, ‘oh, shit, former college athlete, and now I'm here.’” 

During his drives, DJ emphasized treating everyone like they had a story, and learning whatever he could from passengers. After a while, this mentality became second nature. Applying this mindset to his interviews with the athletes proved to be all he needed to start uncovering who the people behind the pads really were.

One of the daring Ice Cross competitors in the film is Jack Shram. Like a lot of these athletes, Jack grew up playing sports at a high level for most of his life, and struggled to fill a massive vacancy he was facing when his career ended. Many of these athletes admitted their struggle with this period of their lives, some of which turned to alcohol or drugs. DJ took specific interest in the moment where a lifelong athlete is no longer playing sports and loses a major part of their identity. 

He began asking the athletes, “So, you grew up playing hockey, what were those days like between losing hockey and gaining Ice Cross?” This powerful, thought-provoking question posed to the athletes importantly illustrates the immense impact this sport has had on these competitors. Ice Cross is an outlet; a way to funnel and expel the energy, tenacity, and discipline that they expressed through sports for so many years. In some ways, Ice Cross gave athletes a refound sense of purpose.

Throughout the season, racers were interviewed three times. Once in the beginning, again before their last race, and a final time after the season had concluded. In the film, the audience is able to watch not just their physical exertion throughout the races, but also their emotional and psychological battles as they deal with injuries, mental health, and the uncertainty of the sport’s future. With Brittan and DJ being close friends, there was a concern that they would struggle interviewing each other in this format. The friends took a professional approach and made it less of a casual conversation. Instead, this was a structured opportunity to tell their own story and this brought to light memories and convictions that the two had never known about the other. These moments also served as valuable opportunities to conduct a pulse check on each other throughout the season and audit their filmmaking experience. 

Amidst the juggling of filmmaking priorities, one thing that Brittan and DJ emphasized to each other throughout the whole process was not allowing themselves to get overwhelmed with the end product. The duo focused on the very next thing that they needed to figure out and took it one step at a time.

“It's like dominoes just falling down,” Brittan told me. “Throughout the process, we're just pinching ourselves. We were like, ‘Man, this is cool as shit,’ but also, once we were done … it's onto the next thing. We enjoy the moment, but there's still work to be done.”

Their spirit of enjoying the moment and taking the process one step at a time was present from their first day of shooting, all the way to the final race of the Ice Cross season when they were officially granted permission from the sports governing body, ATSX, to shoot the documentary. 

“We were gonna ask for forgiveness instead of permission,” DJ admitted with a grin. “So, the president of Ice Cross walks up to one of our videographers halfway through the final race, and asks if they are shooting a documentary. The videographer confirms that they are and the president says, ‘Yeah, I'm gonna need to talk to somebody.’ And he couldn't have been more awesome about everything.”

“DJ came into the locker room right after the final race and I was like, ‘Stau is here, the president of ATSX. You need to go find a way to meet him and try to get an interview with him,’ and DJ said they were already set up for an interview the following day,” Brittan added.

After traveling across the country and overseas, filming had wrapped and it was finally time to piece together a story that would put on display this unbelievable sport, its dedicated fans, and talented athletes. To do so, DJ and Brittan knew they wanted to focus on the evolution of the sport and the Ice Cross community, instead of solely focusing on the heart-pumping action and making the film a glorified highlight reel. There was a singular goal that DJ and Brittan had when creating this project. It was less about their individual ideas for film and more about amplifying the integrity of the Ice Cross community and the obvious motif of their perseverance both on and off the ice.

“I could see it all playing out in my head,” DJ said. “ I've had all these interviews, I've seen what's played out in the races. I've talked to the president of the sport. I know what happened in Ice Cross from its inception to now ... Now how do I get it on a piece of paper with [Brittan] and we agree on a path forward? How do I also get the editor to see that vision?”

These questions were just a few of many that would resurface throughout the grueling editing process. Sifting through days upon days of action and interviews was admittedly overwhelming for the duo, but threads of a story were slowly starting to weave together before them on screen. 

“When we first saw the intro to the film and the trailer [our editor] sent us … we were like,’Holy shit, we got something. This is awesome.’ Then he sent us to the first chapter and we were like, ‘Holy shit, we took a wrong turn,’” the two laughed. It was now brutally apparent that they could edit this film 20 times and tell 20 different stories, so the team had to be very intentional about each frame of content they added or removed from the picture.

Countless hours were spent chiseling away at a digital block of content for the film’s true form to finally reveal itself. Coordinating with conflicting schedules, accommodating foreign time zones, and collaboration between two friends with their own set of creative ideas could have each easily been proven to be dicey ingredients in a recipe bound for disaster. Fortunately, DJ and Brittan prioritized supporting each other's ideas and understanding that the success of this film would require a cooperative joint effort from everyone. 

“So we wrote it out and we wrote it out together, and he's asking me what happened here or what happened there, what happened in this interview,” DJ explained, “And I'm telling [Brittan] a way we could put it down on paper. and he would say, ‘Okay, we're missing something here, so I need to say this. I need to find a way to connect this dot to the next dot.’”

“It is like, if I can't see it, then draw it out for me and help me see it.” Brittan added. “[DJ] doesn't say, ‘It's a no’ and shoots you down.” This practice of teamwork and trust was integral in creating a project that broadcasts a genuine narrative without any preconceived agenda, just as they had intended. Audience members see a raw documentary that prioritized the telling of a true story, rather than a dramatized or performative version of events.

The authenticity of this story is truly what captivates and resonates with the viewer when watching this film. This award-winning documentary clearly shows that Brittan and DJ are accomplished filmmakers, but creative endeavors such as this are here to serve a diverse set of purposes beyond the silver screen. Spreading awareness for Ice Cross itself, promoting the sport’s brilliant athletes, and highlighting the community of fans and organizers that make this possible. It is for these reasons and more that Brittan and DJ set out to make this film.

The result is more than just a film; it is a symbol of the sport’s resilience. Shot in the era when the Ice Cross scene had dwindled to a few dozen diehards—the documentary truly captures its slow but passionate rebirth. By the time they wrapped, crowds were back, new skaters were rising, and the soul of the sport was more visible than ever. Though the documentary and the sport are gaining immense momentum, the road ahead is still likely to present challenges that are as unique and unforgiving as the icy track the skaters must endure.

This film is the story of Ice Cross not just as a sport, but as a community on the edge of oblivion, and the underdog effort to bring it back into the spotlight.

—

You can stream Ice Cross: Life on the Edge on Prime Video and keep up with the ever-evolving story on Instagram by following @lifecross_lifeontheedge