George Roy Hill directed this original sports comedy, written by Nancy Dowd, and starring Paul Newman and Michael Ontkean.
It depicts a minor league ice hockey team that resorts to violent play in order to gain popularity in a factory town that’s in decline.
Dowd based much of her script, as well as several of the characters, on her brother Ned Dowd’s playing experiences on 1970s minor league professional hockey teams.
While Slap Shot received mixed reviews upon release and was only moderate at the box-office, it has since become a cult film.
In Charlestown, Pennsylvania, the local steel mill is about to close permanently and lay off 10,000 workers, threatening the existence of the town’s minor league ice hockey team, the Charlestown Chiefs, which is already struggling with a losing season, indifferent players, and an increasingly hostile crowd. Player-coach Reggie Dunlop, like most of the team, has no employment prospects outside hockey. As a money-saving measure, the team’s penny-pinching manager, Joe McGrath, begins selling equipment, and introduces to the team three young, immature brothers, the Hansons.
Dunlop tries creative ways to manipulate the games, first by goading an opposing goalie into a fight, then by instigating brawls. After seeing the Charlestown fans responding positively to violence, he unleashes the Hansons, whose play mainly consists of brutalizing the other team. Although some of the players are slow to adopt this increasingly violent and thuggish style of play, it excites the fans.
Eventually, he meets the reclusive team owner, Anita McCambridge, and learns that his efforts to increase the team’s popularity (and value) through violence have been for naught, as McCambridge could sell the team if she wishes, but would make more money if she folded the team as a tax write-off.
Dunlop decides to abandon the new strategy of violence for the championship game, believing it to be his last, and the rest of the team agrees. However, their opponents from Syracuse have stocked their team with violent “goons” (many of whom were previously suspended from the league, or even imprisoned). After being crushed during the first period while playing a non-violent style of “old time hockey” and getting booed by their rabid fans, a furious McGrath tells them that various National Hockey League scouts are watching the game.
Dunlop and the rest of the team, except Braden, switch back to brawling, much to the delight of the fans. However, when Braden sees his estranged wife cheering for the Chiefs, he also enters the rink, but instead of joining the brawl he performs a live striptease, adding to the audience’s enjoyment and breaking up the fight.
When McCracken protests this “obscene” demonstration and punches the referee for dismissing him, Syracuse is disqualified, granting the Chiefs the championship. After their win, with the Chiefs effectively folded and finished, Dunlop accepts an offer to be the player-coach to a Minnesota team.
Cast
Paul Newman – Reggie Dunlop (#7)
Strother Martin – Joe McGrath
Michael Ontkean – Ned Braden (#10)
Jennifer Warren – Francine Dunlop
Lindsay Crouse – Lily Braden
Jerry Houser – Dave “Killer” Carlson (#3)
Jeff Carlson – Jeff Hanson (#18)
Steve Carlson – Steve Hanson (#17)
David Hanson – Jack Hanson (#16)
Yvon Barrette – Denis Lemieux (#1)
Allan Nicholls – Johnny Upton (#12)
Brad Sullivan – Morris “Mo” Wanchuk (#2)
Stephen Mendillo – Jim Ahern (#6)
Yvan Ponton – Jean-Guy Drouin (#14)
Matthew Cowles – Charlie
Kathryn Walker – Anita McCambridge
Melinda Dillon – Suzanne Hanrahan
M. Emmet Walsh – Dickie Dunn
Swoosie Kurtz – Shirley Upton
Paul D’Amato – Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken
