Slap Shot (film)

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Slap Shot
US movie poster
Directed by	George Roy Hill
Produced by	Stephen J. Friedman Robert J. Wunsch
Written by	Nancy Dowd
Starring	Paul Newman Strother Martin Michael Ontkean Lindsay Crouse
Music by	Pierre Tubbs
Cinematography	Victor J. Kemper
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	February 25, 1977 (US)
Running time	123 min.
Country	US
Language	English
Followed by	Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Slap Shot is a 1977 Hollywood film starring Paul Newman and Michael Ontkean and directed by George Roy Hill. The film is based on a book written by Nancy Dowd, based in part on her brother Ned Dowd's experiences playing minor league hockey in the United States in the seventies, during which time violence, especially in the low minors, was the selling point of the game.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Miscellany
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie focuses on a fictitious 'Federal League' team called the Charlestown Chiefs. The team, a perennial loser and in financial trouble due to mill closings in the town, is due to be folded at season's end.

Through the course of regular business, the team picks up the Hanson Brothers, violent goons with child-like mentalities. Reggie Dunlop, the veteran player-coach (played by Newman), perceiving them to be eccentric and unreliable, initially chooses not to play them. Finally, in a moment of desperation and passiveness, he brings the trio of thugs into the game to see what they can do. Their big open-ice hits and overly aggressive - bordering on homicidal - style of play is greatly praised by the fans in desperate need of something for which to cheer.

Dunlop, seeing the potential in this style of play, retools the team in the Hansons' image. Most of the other players -- including Dave "Killer" Carlson (Jerry Houser) -- take a liking to this, with the exception of Ned Braden (Ontkean), used to a clean, flashy style of play from his college days. Meanwhile, Braden's wife (Lindsay Crouse) has difficulty adjusting to the life of a hockey wife and finds a sympathizer in Dunlop's long-estranged wife.

It is also revealed to the team that as a result of the mill closing, this will be the last season for the Chiefs. As a means of keeping his team motivated, Dunlop plants a story (which is an outright lie) that the Chiefs are being sold to a prospective buyer in Florida and thus moving the team out of Charlestown. Finally, Dunlop asks the team's stingy General Manager (played by Strother Martin) who the Chiefs' owner is. After meeting the owner (a middle-aged woman living in a comfy suburb), she reveals that the team could be sold, but won't be, as she would prefer to fold the franchise and take a tax writeoff.

The whole idea turns around in the final game when the players discover there will not be another season and most are about to play their last game. Initially, they all vow to play a clean game ("old-time hockey...like Eddie Shore" -- ironic, since Shore was one of the toughest customers in hockey in his day), but their vicious style of play has provoked the opposing team -- the Syracuse Bulldogs -- to put together the most infamous set of goons ever to disgrace a hockey rink. When their annoyed business manager tells the losing Chiefs that there are NHL scouts in the stands, the game quickly degenerates into an on-ice slugfest. Suddenly, Ned Braden spies his estranged wife in the crowd, wearing fashionable clothes and a hairdo. He skates out to center ice and strips off his uniform -- even the band gets into the act by playing "The Stripper". Suddenly, the teams stop fighting and start laughing -- all except Syracuse captain Tim "Dr Hook" McCracken, who demands the referee stop Braden. When the official refuses, McCracken sucker-punches the ref, causing the referee to forfeit the game, and the Federal League championship, to the Chiefs. The team celebrates by parading around the ice with the championship trophy, carried by a jockstrap-only-clad Braden. It's revealed during the championship parade that Dunlop has landed a job as coach of a new team, the Minnesota Nighthawks -- and he intends to bring his players with him.

Ned Dowd himself played Syracuse goon Ogie Oglethorpe in the film and later used the role to launch a career as a Hollywood character actor and producer.

The three characters who play the Hanson brothers: Steve Carlson, Jeff Carlson and Dave Hanson, were actually real hockey players, and the Carlsons are actually brothers. A third Carlson brother, Jack Carlson was supposed to appear as the third brother, with Dave Hanson playing the character of the player Dave "Killer" Carlson, which was based on him. Jack was called up to play for the Edmonton Oilers in the WHA play-offs so he was not available for the film, so Dave Hanson took his place.

[edit] Cast

Paul Newman - Reggie Dunlop
Strother Martin - Joe McGrath
Michael Ontkean - Ned Braden
Jennifer Warren - Francine Dunlop
Lindsay Crouse - Lily Braden
Jerry Houser - Dave 'Killer' Carlson
Andrew Duncan - Jim Carr
Jeff Carlson - Jeff Hanson
Steve Carlson - Steve Hanson
David Hanson - Jack Hanson
Blake Ball - Gilmore Tuttle
Ned Dowd - Ogie Ogilthorpe
Mark Bousquet - Andre "Poodle" Lussier
Connie Madigan - Ross "Mad Dog" Madison
Joe Nolan - Clarence "Screaming Buffalo" Swamptown

[edit] Miscellany

The movie has had an enduring impact on hockey culture. Key lines of script are frequently quoted, some of its terms entering the hockey lexicon outright. [1] Its enduring popularity can be seen in the fact that replica Chiefs jerseys from the movie remain popular sellers, and that the "Hanson Brothers" (hockey players Steve Carlson, Jeff Carlson and Dave Hanson) have made permanent careers out of touring as their personas from the movie.

Todd McFarlane has released a set of figures of the Hanson brothers with connecting bases resembling the hockey rink.

Paul Newman, claiming that he swore very little in real life before the making of Slap Shot, said to Time Magazine in 1984, "There's a hangover from characters sometimes. There are things that stick. Since 'Slap Shot,' my language is right out of the locker room."

The movie was filmed in (and loosely based around) Johnstown, PA and utilized several players from the then-active North American Hockey League Johnstown Jets (the team for which Dowd himself played) as extras. The Carlson Brothers and Dave Hanson also played for the Jets in real life. Many scenes were filmed in the Cambria County War Memorial Arena [2] and Clinton Arena, the Clinton Comets' home ice, and in other Johnstown locales. Ironically, the Johnstown Jets, and the NAHL, folded in 1977, the year Slap Shot was released.

Ned Braden (described by the team's announcer as "a college graduate...and an American citizen!", two unusual traits of a minor-league hockey player in the 70s) is at least partially based on actor Michael Ontkean, a star player for the University of New Hampshire squad in the late 60s. [3]

Reggie Dunlop is based in part on former Long Island Ducks player/coach John Brophy, who gets homaged by his last name being used for the drunk center of the Hyannisport Presidents. Syracuse goon Ogie Oglethorpe was based on longtime minor-league goon Bill "Goldie" Goldthorpe

In another tribute to the movie's popularity, two real-life teams are called the Chiefs and wear the fictional squad's sweaters: the ECHL's Johnstown Chiefs who are also based in Johnstown PA and whos name came after the Charlestown team, and the Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu Chiefs of the Ligue nord-américaine de hockey (LNAH).

A much-derided direct-to-video sequel, Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice, was filmed in 2002.

The appearance and mannerisms of the Hanson Brothers inspired a professional wrestling stable known as the Dudley Boyz.

Similarly, the movie inspired The Hanson Brothers, a side project of the Canadian rock band NoMeansNo.

The Maxine Nightingale tune "Right Back Where We Started From" is featured in the original release. Recently, it has been replaced in TV viewings with a generic soundalike tune (possibly due to rights issues). However, the DVD release keeps the original. The VHS version released in the early 1980s contains none of the music by the name acts as heard in the theaters; all that music is substituted with songs in the same general style of the originals, but not the actual original songs nor artists.

Film critic Gene Siskel noted that his greatest regret as a critic was giving a mediocre review to this movie when it was first released. After viewing it several more times, he grew to like it more and later listed it as one of the greatest American comedy movies of all time.

The EA Sports video games "NHL 98, NHL 99, NHL 2000, NHL 2001, NHL 2002 and NHL 2003" features a mode in which you can create two custom teams, one of which, called the EA Blades, have very similar jerseys to the Chiefs.

Three Syracuse Crunch season ticket holders dress as the Hanson Brothers for each and every Crunch home game. And sometimes during a stoppage of play, if there is a man in the opposing penalty box, one of the three will get out of their seat when the theme to Bonanza begins and proceed to travel around the main row on the ice level and crash into the penalty box seemingly as a taunt to the other team.

The Chief's bus driver Walt Comisky (Cliff Thompson) takes a sledge hammer to the bus to make it look mean. He also wears a Nazi helmet with swastika, most visible when loading frenzied fans onto the bus.