Jeffrey Zucker is a self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” and cofounder of Green Lion Partners, a cannabis-industry business strategy firm. Photo courtesy of McMahan Supply Productions, Big Smits Entertainment, Janowski Entertainment

TV & Film

From BU Hockey Fan to Entrepreneur to Filmmaker

How Jeffrey Zucker (Questrom’10) turned his love for Terrier hockey into the beer league comedy The Late Game

The US South understandably doesn’t have quite the same ice hockey culture as states in colder climates. So, growing up in Charleston, S.C., Jeffrey Zucker, who fell in love with the game as a kid, knew he wanted to attend a big hockey school for college. He set his eyes on Boston University, alma mater of his idol Chris Drury (CAS’98), a former Terrier center guard and current president and general manager of the New York Rangers.

the alma mater of one of his favorite former National Hockey League player and Hobey Baker Award winner Chris Drury, .

During Zucker’s time at BU, hockey was everything to him. When his father passed away during his sophomore year, the Dog Pound became Zucker’s refuge. 

“To have the best team in the nation to watch the whole first year after he passed…was just an escape that I needed,” Zucker (Questrom’10) says. “And it came to me at this important time in my life.” And in 2009, during his junior year, his ultimate dream as a Terrier hockey fan came true: the Terriers won their first NCAA championship since 1995.

Zucker graduated from Questrom with a degree in business administration and management, with a concentration in entrepreneurship. Since then, the self-proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” has dipped his toes into everything from the residential real estate market to the cannabis tech industry. Today, he is cofounder, with Mike Bologna (Questrom’10), of Green Lion Partners, a cannabis-industry business strategy firm. 

Eventually, his economic ventures led him to the film industry, where, after repeated attempts at projects, he set off to make his own feature-length film, about the friendships that form during a men’s late-night hockey game—The Late Game. 

He developed the film with longtime friend Jeff Tyner as writer, director, and producer; Zucker is an executive producer and one of the film’s main players. The idea was inspired by the two pals’ own involvement in a men’s senior hockey league and love for the game. 

“The thing about hockey, if you want to keep playing as you get older, you end up in a beer league,” Zucker says. “That’s just where everybody ends up. You either don’t play or you’re in beer league. And it’s played late at night because that’s when the rinks can afford to give you ice time. It just has its own culture.”

The movie is set during one night of beer hockey and follows Riley, played by newcomer Alec Reusch, a down-on-his-luck guy who has recently moved across the country for a job and simultaneously gone through a heart-wrenching breakup. Just when he’s hit rock bottom, Riley is asked to sub in at an 11 pm beer hockey game. He makes friends along the way.

For Zucker, The Late Game is, at its core, a movie about making friends, specifically as an adult. “It’s about putting yourself out there and how that can be really good for you, especially when times are tough,” he says.

The film was shot at an Olympic-size rink in Charleston over the span of 16 days. Zucker’s former classmates and Green Lion business partners Joe Primavera (Questrom’10) and Bologna were production assistants.

After filming, Zucker says, it took the team about a year and a half to edit the movie, which was released on Prime Video in the United States in February with the help of Blue Harbor Entertainment, a company specializing in film distribution. It can also be streamed on Apple TV and Fandango at Home.

Zucker funded the film and says that regardless of how it performs, it’s his proudest professional accomplishment. “I’ve never had something come together at once like such a symphony,” he says. The film has received generally positive reviews from critics and has a 4.5-star review rating on Amazon Prime. 

His time at BU’s business school gave him a strong foundation as an entrepreneur, Zucker says, specifically, one who learns best by doing, or as he calls it, “throwing yourself in the fire.”

“I think some of that spirit came from my experience at Questrom,” he says, reflecting on his time participating in the Cross-Functional Core Project, commonly referred to by students as “Core.” Students spend a semester working in teams across various business disciplines to create a product or service and a full-fledged business plan. 

As he continues to promote The Late Game, Zucker hopes the light-hearted comedy will provide audiences with an escape from reality. 

“We wanted viewers to not have to feel the world for those 86 minutes,” he says. “My dad passed away my sophomore year, and even though he wasn’t a huge hockey guy, he would have enjoyed our film.”

Stream The Late Game here.