Silver Bells: Going “For the Win” Instead of “For the Family”

On Sunday, December 1, the holiday themed made-for-TV movie Silver Bells will debut on the cable channel UP at 7 PM.

Silver Bells tells the story of Bruce Dalt (actor Bruce Boxleitner from Hallmark Channel’s new series Cedar Cove and well-known for the box office film Tron and the long-running series Scarecrow and Mrs. King) an ambitious, gung-ho father and local TV sports anchor, who is known for his tag line “For the Win”.

Despite his best intentions, though, Bruce’s gung-ho manner seems to do more harm than good not only at his job but also in his private life as well. At work, it seems that the fresh faced new girl at the news station is gunning for his job; and he is, unwittingly, pushing his high-school basketball-playing son Jason (actor Kenton Duty from the Disney series Shake It Up!) too hard to succeed in the game.

Things come to a head when Bruce inadvertently injures a high school basketball referee, who makes a bad call during a really big game for Jason. That incident, which was filmed by a number of attendees at the game and ends up going viral online, comes back to hurt Bruce with not only a demotion at work but also a hearing in court for his actions.

As you can imagine, Bruce is sentenced to community service and he ends up having to spend time with The Salvation Army, manning one of their donation locations outside a local department store.

At first Bruce’s time ringing the Salvation Army bell doesn’t exactly go well – you will have to tune in to see what happens – but eventually the true power of the season starts to change his outlook, which ends up turning things around for him at work and at home.

The film also stars Bridgett Newton (Franklin & Bash) as Bruce’s interior designer wife Piper, Kevin Downes (the box office film Courageous) as the injured basketball referee, Antonio Fargas (Everybody Hates Chris) as Major Melvin Lowell, Bruce’s Salvation Army mentor and Laura Spencer (The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Switched at Birth) as Bruce’s law school daughter Kasey.

Silver Bells is the kind of family friendly, learn-a-lesson film that plays out on television each holiday season with familiar faces in the lead roles. It shows what the true meaning of the season really is all about and how one encounter can change everything for the better.

Again, Silver Bells will debut on the cable network UP on Sunday, December 1 at 7 PM and will have encore presentations that night at 9 and 11 PM as well.

Here is a trailer for Silver Bells.