When hockey ace Steven Westover and his kid sister, Tara, move with their family from California to the snowy British Columbia town of Nelson, they have more than a little trouble adjusting to their new environment. Steven finds that his new hockey team, the Nelson Nuggets, are a bunch of dispirited losers who'd rather fight than play the game and because of her hearing disability, Tara feels like a bit of an outcast amongst her new classmates. However, everything changes for the better when they come across a highly communicative chimp named Jack who not only knows sign language, but also has one helluva slap shot.