40 YEARS LATER, SLAP SHOT CAN STILL PUT ON THE FOIL
‘Tastefully vulgar’ hockey flick is every bit as familiar to today’s fans and pro players
If Al Pacino could skate, Reg Dunlop might have been more like a Godfather than a father figure to the young misfits on the Charlestown Chiefs.
Forty years this month after Slap Shot punched its way onto the silver screen with a comedic counter-culture take on minor pro hockey, an enlightening documentary called Slap Shot at 40 has been unveiled by the NHL Network.
It reveals that one Oscar winner might easily have been replaced by another had ol’ Scarface grown up on skates.
“Even before (Academy Award winner) George Roy Hill was brought in as the director of the film, they had cast Al Pacino to play Reggie Dunlop,” said Dave Hanson, one of the movie’s beloved Hanson brothers, whom the documentary revolves around.
“When George and Pacino finally met each other, the first thing out of George’s mouth was, ‘Can you skate?’ I don’t know if there was ever an answer there, but I got a feeling Pacino couldn’t skate, and that’s why we ended up with Newman.”
It was a fortuitous fallback to have as Newman was one of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time, adding instant credibility to the 1977 film.
As Bob Costas points out in the 25-minute documentary, having the team’s beloved player-coach portrayed by Newman is key to its cult status. And it was Newman who sought out the gig after reading the screenplay about a losing Rust Belt team in the Federal League that reverts to old-time hockey in a bid to save the franchise from folding.
In dated footage, Newman recalled that after reading the script, he was all in.
“It’s foul-mouthed but it’s real and beautiful,” said Newman, who literally stalked the director — who assumed Newman would be too expensive for the project.
After grabbing an office assistant by the scruff of the neck with demands he meet with Roy Hill at his Palm Springs office, Newman said, he finally sat down with him “at 6 a.m. with a six-pack of beer and wrote the contract.”
An open call for actors who could skate in Burbank, Calif., saw 100 lads show up, half with figure skates. Eventual A-listers Peter Strauss and Nick Nolte were among the hopefuls who could hardly stand on blades.
“Nick subsequently got worse every day he came out,” Ned Dowd said with a chuckle. Dowd’s sister Nancy wrote the script after spending two weeks watching him and his Johnstown Jets play in the old North American Hockey League.
“After about a week, he looked at me and said, ‘This isn’t going to happen, is it?’ I said, ‘I don’t think so.’”
Unable to find enough actors to realistically portray hockey players, they turned to members of Dowd’s team as possible cast members, which is where they found Steve, Jeff and Jack Carlson.
“We weren’t supposed to be part of the movie,” said Steve Carlson, whose brother Jack was promoted to a WHA team just before filming, opening the door for Jets teammate Dave Hanson to round out a comedic trio akin to the Three Stooges.
“They couldn’t find actors who could skate well enough to do our parts. That’s how we became involved.”
From there, they essentially took over the movie, becoming cult heroes who still accommodate many of the 300 requests for appearances they get annually.
“The language is quite a bit beyond blue — it’s heavy into purple, almost,” Newman said in 1977 of the dialogue, which is remarkably similar to that heard in many adult dressing rooms.
“This is the raunchiest film I’ve ever done. I think it will be tastefully vulgar.”
Costas gets plenty or airtime in the documentary, as he spent the 1973-74 season announcing for the Syracuse Blazers of the Eastern Hockey League, the precursor to the NAHL.
“In the one year, I am here to tell you that while Slap Shot may have exaggerated a little for dramatic effect, it’s essentially true,” Costas said.
“Not only were there multiple fights in almost every game, but these were wild, almost cartoonish bench-clearing brawls in which the trainers would square off, the coaches would fight and one time the bus driver went up into the stands to duke it out with some fans behind the penalty box.”
Minnesota Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau, who played for the Johnstown Jets in 1975-76, agreed.
“It was a rough-and-tumble minor league. The 17-hour bus rides and very little pay — it was about as low on the totem pole as you could probably get,” he said.
It was that gritty, raw, hilarious and relatable portrayal of a group of deliciously quirky characters just trying to get by that made it an instant hit with hockey fans, if no one else. Known for its colourful language and the fact it was written by a woman, critics originally panned the film.
“My initial review was mixed and then I saw it two weeks later, thankfully, and I knew it was a terrific film,” critic Gene Siskel said on a Late Show appearance in which Dave Letterman agreed it was a “great movie,” before citing the Hanson Brothers.
“A great working-class story, a wonderful, risky performance by Paul Newman — just a terrific film.”
However, it wasn’t until the ’80s that VHS sales of the movie skyrocketed, eventually earning it $28 million in gross sales.
“It has, like, two dozen lines that everybody knows,” Costas said, referring to catchphrases like “old-time hockey,” and “putting on the foil.”
“And for some reason, you can watch the movie for the 15th time — you still like it when you hear those lines. I’ll bet 90 per cent of all NHLers had seen the movie and had memorized half that script.”
Connor McDavid, Ryan Suter, Kyle Okposo and Victor Hedman attest to that, confirming in the doc today’s NHL dressing rooms still have plenty of Slap Shot banter.
“You walk into a locker-room and you just hear the guys when the movie Slap Shot comes up, there are lines after lines,” Shea Weber said.
“It doesn’t matter how many times you watch it — you still get a chuckle out of it and think about the old times,” added Al MacInnis, who is also joined by fellow NHL alumni Adam Oates, Phil Esposito, Mike Bossy, Billy Smith and Mike Gartner in the documentary.
Without question the only good hockey movie ever made, this wonderful time capsule of minor pro hockey still ranks as one the most iconic, crass and unique sports movies of all time. It’s a classic, especially in Canada. Even a legend like Pacino couldn’t have pulled that off without being able to skate.