Slap Shot

A failing ice hockey team finds success using constant fighting and violence during games.

• Director: George Roy Hill
• Genre:Comedy / Drama / Sport
• Runtime:122 minutes

Cast

Paul Newman : Reggie ‘Reg’ Dunlop
Strother Martin : Joe McGrath
Michael Ontkean : Ned Braden
Jennifer Warren : Francine Dunlop
Lindsay Crouse : Lily Braden

The movie focuses on a fictional team called the Charlestown Chiefs, who are members of the fictional Federal League. 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. Reggie Dunlop, the veteran player-coach (played by Newman), has no idea who the owner of the team is.

Through the course of regular business, the team picks up the Hanson Brothers, violent goons with child-like mentalities. Coach Dunlop, 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, Lily (Lindsay Crouse), has difficulty adjusting to the life of a hockey wife and finds a sympathizer in Reggie Dunlop’s long-estranged wife Francine (played by Jennifer Warren).

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, who would move the team out of Charlestown. Finally, Dunlop blackmails the team’s stingy General Manager Joe McGrath (played by Strother Martin) to tell him who the Chiefs’ owner is. After finally meeting the owner (a widow living in a comfy suburb), she reveals to Reggie that she could easily sell the team now that he’s turned them into winners, but that she won’t, because she can make out better by folding the franchise and taking a tax write-off. Read more