Starring Luke Kirby, Sarah Polley, and Jed Rees. Rated 14A.

It's probably difficult for people born since, say, 1972 to get much sense of the strange fever that gripped this country that year. Canada, not the Cold Warriors of the United States, is squaring off against the mighty hockey machine of the Soviet Union in an eight-game matchup.

The games are in Moscow--as we see in exciting snippets of archival footage--but there's a sense that this country is playing on its own turf. Who can tell how it will all turn out? The unknown seems to be what attracts youngish Shane Bradley (Luke Kirby), whose addiction to gambling will meet its apotheosis as the nation's fever rises.

He's also tempted to roll the dice in the romance department, but there he proves considerably more cautious. To be specific, he has had a jones so long for his best gal pal Margaret (Sarah Polley) that it takes an almost split-second kiss to remind him of his feelings. Unfortunately, this happens on the eve of her long-planned-for trip abroad--with an old boyfriend, no less. There's the sense that Shane could stop her if he acted quickly enough, but that would mean actually knowing what he wants out of life and love.

Instead of figuring himself out, he starts up a bookie shop right in the ramshackle Toronto house he shares with some other losers in transition. These include one played by Vancouverite Jed Rees in a nice change-of-pace role; his Andrew is a foul-mouthed cynic--"If you like sex better than gambling," he says, "you're not gambling right"--and a chronic risk taker. But he ultimately proves himself the most balanced, or at least in-control, character of the bunch. In any case, he would never bankroll his part of the venture, like Shane does, with five grand borrowed from a loan shark notorious for breaking knees like bread sticks.

Writer-director Peter Wellington nails the post-'60s hangover of the era, from the grungy brown-and-orange interiors--a complement to perpetually yellow-grey Ontario skies--to Shane's overly effusive muttonchop sideburns. Luck seems to know where it's going, even if the protagonist (and his homeland, by extension) doesn't quite.

Given plenty of false leads and surprise turns, thanks to the antihero's unreliable voice-over recollections, the movie starts simply, with an accretion of small psychological observations. Aided by a spooky rock score from Melissa Auf Der Maur and Luc Montpellier's loose-limbed, washed-out cinematography, these, like the games themselves, build toward a finish that offers suspense and a sense of fate at its weirdest. The flick's closing laugh is an almost mystical, if not misty-eyed, souvenir of those eight famous face-offs.