Former Colby College hockey player lends expertise to Inside Out 2

Inside Out 2 is in theaters now. A former Colby College hockey player served as a consultant on the film. Provided by: Disney/Pixar

In her work at Pixar, Tracy Roberts brings drawings of characters to life by virtually sculpting their figures and defining their range of motion, but when filmmakers needed someone with hockey expertise for “Inside Out 2,” the former Colby College athlete stepped up to take on a different role.

“Inside Out 2,” which came out in June and is still in theaters, reintroduces audiences to Riley, a young girl who plays hockey and endures the physical and mental intensity of the sport — a character Roberts can relate to.

Roberts, who grew up in Boston and now lives in Oakland, California, played for the NCAA Division I Colby College hockey team in the early 1980s.

“It was a lot of fun, but it was hard work. It felt like a full-time job,” she said. “I love skating, so it was the perfect escape for me.”

These days she spends her Saturday mornings at the Oakland Ice Rink running a hockey development program for girls ages 4 to 18.

“Kelsey Mann, the director, and Mark Nielsen, the producer, found out that I was a hockey coach and player,” she says, “so I started talking a lot with Kelsey about story ideas and different plays and basic ideas that he had.”

Colby College alumna Tracy Roberts, pictured behind one of the players, runs a development program for girls ages 4 to 18 at the Oakland Ice Rink in the Bay Area and is a youth hockey coach for the San Jose Sharks. Courtesy of Tracy Roberts

Roberts said people working on the film had been asking her if things looked right and if she understood certain rules of the game correctly.

“I tried not to interfere too much and wait for people to approach me,” she says. “When I was working on other projects, I would log on to Zoom and listen to hockey shots in the background, so that at least I was there when they had questions.”

Roberts, whose official title is “character technical director,” helped animators figure out how to make Riley look natural when skating and without his helmet and mouthguard.

“I film the girls that I coach, and they're so excited, so funny,” she says. “The boys are funny, but the girls are just so happy to be on the ice.”

Brendan Beasley, a Pixar animator who worked on “Inside Out 2,” said Roberts' support was crucial to the film's success. Beasley has been with Pixar since 2013, with the first project being the first “Inside Out.” Beasley played hockey from childhood through college, and met Roberts through hockey a little over a year ago.

“There aren't a lot of hockey players at Pixar, so when you meet someone who has a passion for hockey and knows hockey and you click with them, it's really fun,” he says. “We can break down scenes and plays together.”

Beasley said Roberts' background as a coach made the animation especially helpful in more accurately reflecting the girls' skating gliding.

“Kelsey (Mann) relied on her a lot,” Beasley said. “Whenever hockey was on the table, he'd look around the room and say, 'Where's Tracy?'”

To show their appreciation, the filmmakers named a character after Roberts and referred to Riley's coach as “Coach Roberts.”

The film took four years to make, which Roberts says is a fast pace for Pixar. target As for how long that will take, she said that in reality filmmaking often takes much longer.

“They've made a film that really helps people,” she said. “It's a really beautiful film and it talks about mental health, balance and love.”

Roberts hopes the film will resonate with other female athletes the way it did with her.

“At this point, I've seen it four times, and of course there are a lot of nostalgic moments from my high school and college skating days that make it feel so real,” she said. “Every time I watch it, I see something new and the big moments resonate even more with me than the first time I saw it.”

Roberts said he is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate on the film, as well as his time at Colby College.

“I have fond memories of painting alone in the art studio, sledding down the hill at Colby on cafeteria trays and even one time my freshman year when it snowed so much in my dorm I had to climb out a first-floor window,” said Roberts, who majored in economics and art history and minored in studio art.

After getting his career on track, Colby interned at a stop-motion company before moving to Tippett Studios where he worked on a number of films, including Marvel's “The Avengers” and “Soul Snatcher.” He stayed at Pixar for three years, working on the short film “Self” before collaborating on “Inside Out 2.”

Roberts hasn't been back to Colby since graduating, but she hopes to one day show her son, now 18, where she spent her college years.

“I want to take my kids to Maine,” she says. “There's nothing like Maine.”

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