The greatest hockey, no, the greatest sports movie, turns 40.
Forty years. It seems like ages ago but yet, feels almost recent. Slap Shot premiered February 25th, 1977. For most Americans, hockey was a sport associated with missing teeth, Gordie Howe and being Canada’s top import to our country. Oh and maybe the odd tussle. Slap Shot not only help marry the connection of hockey and fighting but also became a cult classic for sports fans for many years to come. In my opinion it’s the best sports film ever made.
Hockey in 1976 was a period of change. Fans of the traditional sense of hockey were fearful of the Philadelphia Flyers winning another Stanley Cup. Their instigating and pugnacious style was ruining the sport. The Broad Street Bullies emphasized big, strong players, who were not afraid to use their fists to attack opponents. From the traditional fan’s point of view, they were everything wrong with hockey. Just ask the Soviet Red Army team.
The Flyers faced off against the Montreal Canadiens. They were a cleaner, well balanced team. To counter rough and rugged play of Philadelphia’s Bobby Clarke, Ed Van Impe, and Dave Schultz was the grace of Montreal’s Guy LaFleur and the brilliance of netminder Ken Dryden. The Canadiens played “the right way”. Sure, they had players who could drop the gloves, but it was not part of the game plan. Montreal was viewed as the team to save “old time hockey”!
Montreal swept the Flyers (in close games), helping establish themselves as the franchise of the 1970s. The Canadiens would win six Stanley Cups in that decade.
In minor league hockey, brawls were part of the lifestyle. Teams even promoted the fisticuffs on the ice. This is the world Nancy Dowd immerse herself in during the mid-1970s.
Nancy Dowd’s brother, Ned, phoned his sister, living in Los Angeles. A minor league hockey player, Ned told her stories about his team, the Johnstown Jets, who were up for sale. Finding inspiration in her brother’s career, having heard about the fight culture, added on to an impending team sale and probable move, she relocated herself to the Pennsylvania town.
In Johnstown, she built the screenplay for what would become Slap Shot. Having her brother tape the locker room talk on a voice recorder, Nancy had a frame of reference for the dialogue. Following the action on the ice and the lives of minor league hockey players, provided added depth to her story.
Initially Nancy Dowd thought this could have been a documentary. Director George Roy Hill saw the potential in the film being a full length feature comedy. Once Hill finished with the script and the film, he was right.
Not to necessarily spoil the film for those who have not seen it yet, here’s the basic premise (also be weary that most of these clips have NSFW language). The Charlestown Chiefs are a second division hockey team. Reg Dunlop (Paul Newman) is a failing player-coach, trying to wake his team up. When he learns of the team’s possible sale, he spends the rest of the movie trying to sell any buyer on this club. The best way he knows how to appeal to American hockey fans is to increase fights. In between those fights and some amateur marriage counselling for his star forward, there are scenes of hockey being played.
The hockey had to be convincing. Dowd filled a script full of real hockey dialogue. George Roy Hill, a native Minnesotan, knew the hockey had to be convincing. Paul Newman, who did not have a hockey background, did a great job convincing Hill he was a competent skater.
Jerry Houser, who played Dave “Killer” Carlson, proved he had the stuff to play a hockey player. In fact, he would go onto to the role of Les Auge, the final player cut on the 1980 U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team, for the TV film, Miracle on Ice. He would later help set up and play in celebrity charity hockey games in Los Angeles.
Michael Ontkean had the toughest role. As star player, Ned Braden, Ontkean had to tap into his hockey past. The former University of New Hampshire product, scored 23 goals and 17 assists in the 1968–69 season. It drew enough attention that the New York Rangers offered Ontkean a contract, which he turned down.
Most of the other hockey player roles went to Ned Dowd and his teammates. While most players went on anonymous minor league careers, it was the likes of Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson, and Dave Hanson who became hockey cultural icons. While they would spend some time in the WHA or NHL, they earned their status as “The Hanson Brothers”. They acted like “retards” but they played like seasoned minor league pros.
As crazy as how these fights started or the situation they take place, they were based on real events. In the above clip, there was an actual brawl started before a game. It wasn’t the first time. Nor would it be the last (I’m looking at you Good Friday Massacre). The real fight took place when the Johnstown Jets were playing the Buffalo Norsemen, in Buffalo. The Jets, featuring a black player on the roster, was subject to plenty of racial taunts from the Buffalo fans. When the next game, played back in Johnstown, was about to beginning, the Jets started a brawl before the refs made their way to the ice. It was as if you could not make this stuff up.
The fights are ironically put on trial. Yet, it’s the most endearing part of the film’s legacy. Hockey players grow up, being ingrained with the lines, “putting on the foil” and “take that sentence back!”. It’s a staple of hockey team bus viewing. It even found a place in other sports. As the 2003 Florida Marlins, a team brimming with young players, shocked the league with a run towards a World Series title, constantly quoted the movie. Even showing it on the big screen TV after games.
Slap Shot was a humorous look at hockey and the perception of Americans viewing hockey in the 1970s. The music and the clothes are out dated. Yet, the theme of violence punctuating sports and our desire to see blood on the ice has not change much since when this film was made in 1976. Minor league teams still move around a lot. The fighting, especially in the AHL, is still there. And the locker room talk, be it about getting some “snatch at the pool” or calling an opponent’s wife a “dyke” is most likely still commonplace. This film was as real as it gets, while not taking the subject matter overly serious. At the end of the day, it is a comedy.
It’s nice to know that we’re still talking about Slap Shot, some 40 years since it premiered. It was not a glossy production like Youngblood or tried to be over the top with it’s humor like other hockey comedies like Goon. Slap Shot was a great film, and one we will continue to love.
