Watch your $*&!@"* language and drop the %*&@# puck

Having grown up in and around the game of hockey from the time I was a peewee until now, (though my playing time is greatly reduced due to many commitments), I was keenly interested in this movie when it first came out on the big screen back in the 70's. Since then I have seen it on broadcast television, (Not Recommended), and on home video where you can view the movie in all its foul mouthed glory, (Highly Recommended.) So buckle up folks, it's game time.

Here comes the wind-up, the SLAP SHOT and we all score: !

Slapshot the movie is about the "fictional" Charleston Chiefs from blue collar Pennsylvania, in what they call in the movie "The Iron League." But is it really fictional ? First the movie and then some behind the scenes commentary.

The Charleston Chiefs are in deep financial trouble. The capital worshiping owner, puppeted by the teams General Managerplayed excellently-disgustingly by Strother Martin wants to dissolve the team and cut "his" losses. "He" starts a rumor that the team will fold after the last game of the season and the players aren't too keen on that idea at all. The team is horrible, they can't seem to beg-steal-borrow a victory, and with the imminent demise of the club they figure what's the reason for even trying. They wallow too long in their self pity, and the teams player-coach Reg Dunlop played with aplomb by Paul Newman decides to counter rumor the owner with the news the team will be moving to Florida next year.

The players don't know what to think now so it is business as usual. Game losses mount and ticket sales are down. Now the fans have a new favorite sport, verbally abusing the players to the chagrin of everyone. Buy a ticket and tell your home team what trash they are. Could they have taken a lesson from Green Bay Packer fans from the 70s and early 80s ? But I digress. With the newfound future life in "Florida" to spur them on the players skate with renewed vigor, and they even squeak out a win or two.

Enter the Hanson Brothers. Picked up for the remainder of the year to help out their cause, the Hanson Brothers bring their unique symmetry as well as a penchant for drawing blood, to the ice. At first, Reg didn't want to give them even one shift, but then as things went from bad to worse he figured "lets turn 'em loose and see what they can do." This was the single most blessed and cursed thing he could have done. The Hanson Brothers, whom now dictate the rest of the Cheifs season as well as the movie as a whole, begin their reign of terror on the iron league.

In game after game fans seem to be coming out of the woodwork as the Cheifs begin to gel and win more and more. This no doubt peaks the interest of the miserly owner re-thinking "his" strategy in hopes of maybe cashing in more. But the season and the movie belong to the Chiefs, and chief among them, the Hanson Brothers. The term "slapstick" comedy was perhaps written in prophecy for a future time that would include these three.

They make a mockery of the game, they make a mockery of the team, and they will absolutely make you soil yourself as you witness their antics on as well as off ice. It seems that the only way they can get fired up for a game is to "put on the foil." They actually wrap their hands, pre glove, in tin foil to "foil their opponents." They then proceed to score goal after goal while never passing up an opportunity to shed those gloves in battle. In hockey, primarily the NHL of today, fighting is discouraged. If you come off the bench while a fight is going on, you will be penalized and asked to please take a shower by men resembling Zebras.

This is not your Fathers NHL here folks. This is the "Iron League" where bench clearing brawls are not only common, they are encouraged. With the promise of great revenue, the Hanson Brothers oblige with penalty minutes counted on a calender instead of a clock. Of course there are heroes, like the only "athlete" on the team played by Michael Ontkean, the player who just does not fit in. He wants to play clean and stick to his high I.Q. lily white ivy league educated sportsmanship roots. Dave "Killer" Carlson, and the French Canadian goalie who if you aren't familiar with the north of the border vernacular you just may miss some of the funniest lines in the movie. And there are villians, like the mythical "Ogie Oglethorp" who would rather kill you and mail you back to your mother in pieces then look at you.

The movie progresses quite nicely to an ending that may or may not be predictable, or what you even wanted to see for that matter. Add in some adultery, more foul language then you ever thought possible and hockey players really do talk and live like this folks and you have the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" quality of instant cult classic for the rough crowd. The rest of the movie will be up to you to find out. I've already almost spoiled everything for you. If you want fast paced action, blood, dirty low down rotten foul mouthed humor nicely hidden in a movie with a plot, skate down to your video rental shop, and begin learning how to talk like a hockey player today !

OH MY EYES....MY EYES:
Or: Mr. Blackwell please come to my emotional rescue !

Worth a look even for the horrid 70s fashions alone. I can remember my dad in the 70s trying to be "with it" and emulating the "in" styles of this era. Included in this...and I kid you not... are polyester leisure suits. I can't stress to you enough, there is no way I could ever make anything like this up, I am not, by any stretch of the imagination a fiction writer.

The horrors of seeing your own Father "stepping out" in polyester pants and a matching polyester "sport coat" with a shirt collar big enough to take off in a stiff breeze, ala the flying nun and Her hat, and the cuffs of His sleeves folded up over the sleeves of his sport coat is enough to never want to touch that visual ever, no never again. I shall gouge my eyes out with a rusty hocky skate blade should you threaten me with that !

Well coach Reg and company will let the nightmare continue. Mr. Blackwell and Emme would have a field day with this fashion emergency, as well as Joan Rivers and Her Daughter. Keep your eyes open for this intriguing statement, it's worth a chuckle or twelve.

You've seen behind the music, now stay tuned for behind the bleachers:

Where I live, in Marquette, Michigan, there are three things to do in the winter, play hockey, or go snowmobiling or skiing. When I was young growing up in and around the Palestra, the ice arena here in town at the time, there was a minor league hockey team called The Iron Rangers of the then U.S.H.L. Call me precocious but I think, contrary to what has been written that this movie was based on this team. Okay, that was metaphorically speaking... Call me precocious again, and the gloves will come off and you will become an organ donor !

Two of the three "Hanson" Brothers in the movie were actually played by two Carlson brothers of the actual three that played hockey for the Marquette Iron Rangers. Jack, Jeff, and Steve. The trio of Brothers lived and played here for three or four years until such a time that our actual team folded, then the entire league was no more. The play and antics in this movie may seem caricatured to you, but in reality it was almost this bad. Bench clearing brawls and some of the roughest and bloodiest hockey you will never again see thanks to modern class and rules.

Right down to the Ogie Oglethorp character, who bears a striking resemblance to Ernie Dupont of the Green Bay Bobcats of the U.S.H.L. this movie seems to have been at least deeply researched in Marquette. These three Carlson Brothers stuck together like glue with the understanding that "if you want one of us to play for you, you have to take us all." Two of the three were excellent players and fearsome fighters, with the third being smaller, speedier, and not so tough. If you messed with the younger brother, you had to contend with big brother 1 and 2.

The drinking, the womanizing, the shady characters were all in place right here in the great white north. This movie will always be one of my favorites because it hits so close to home. The only thing that broke these stooges up was the calling up of Steve to the NHL by the Minnesota Northstars. (Now the Dallas Stars)

A personal slap shot story

The first time I ever saw this movie was while I was in lower Michigan with a friend of mine visiting His Brother while we were on spring break. Bill (my friend) and I went to see this movie in a 10 theater complex while Bills Brother and the Brothers Girlfriend saw Black Sunday on another screen. As we were sitting in an almost empty theater a man with long hair walked by us and sat four or five rows in front of us with another man.

I said to Bill, "that guy looks familiar" but of course not knowing any one down there except the people I was with I just dismissed it, but it just kept bugging me. We sat through the entire movie Slap Shot and as the credits rolled, I told Bill to wait until the man in question walked past our row so I could get another look at him. Still nothing.

We waited approximately twenty minutes for Black Sunday to let out so we could leave, and while waiting an usher came running by us as the guy whom was in front of us exited. When the usher came back into the complex he asked us is we saw the man. "Yeah, so" ? we replied. "That was Bob Seger."

Please read the other "Sports Movie Reviews" by my other epinions friends in this write-off: amylensor, awoolcott, bigjack, driver4t5, fm_hunter, foxfroggy, hhire, j3nny3lf, janesbit1, jennifer_gibbons, joubert, katetpz, kinganamort, kingjfs, and soxfan.