Hockey Movie Red-Lighters
Like Kevin over at Unplugged Living, I can’t help but be excited about the return of the NHL. I grew up with hockey, I played goal competitively for years, I lived in a town that lived and breathed by the victories and defeats of the local minor league team.
Allow me then, a few moments of selfish exposition to tell you about a few of my favourite hockey movies, and some films on ice you may never have heard of.
Old Favourites
Slap Shot: An oldie, but a goodie. This hockey flick from 1977 continues to be a favourite of hockey players and fans everywhere for it’s comedic take on the sport. Led by the hilariously aggressive Hanson brothers, a struggling team turns to brawling to make their presence in the league known. They face a cranky owner and even crankier crowds, and have to deal with internal squabbles, all while trying to put together a decent season record.
The Mighty Ducks: The reasons for this one might be kind of obvious….there was a girl goalie. Julie “The Cat” Gaffney in fact. And despite the fact that I watched this movie almost 15 years ago, I didn’t even have to look up her name. A typical Disney feel-good movie where a bunch of no-names come together and rise to the top with some inspiration and emotional support from coaches and friends. Too bad the sequels were trash.
The Cutting Edge: Whenever anyone fell for no good reason during practice, we would all giggle and shout “TOEPICK!” across the ice at the mortified player. This movie was where that tradition began. International hockey player Doug Dorsey suffers a career ending injury at the Olympics and falls into a routine of self-pity. Olympic hopeful Kate Moseley has just ditched her pairs figure skating partner with little time left to prepare for the next major competition. Sparks fly and head butt when Moseley’s coach recruits Dorsey as a replacement, and they are both forced to confront their sporting stereotypes.
Happy Gilmore: I am not an Adam Sandler fan to be honest, but the previews showing Bob Barker (host of The Price is Right) pounding the living snot out of Sandler’s character on a golf green had me in stitches. It has since become my favourite old-school Sandler film. A pro league hockey reject takes up golfing in order to win enough tournament prize money to save his grandmother’s house. Needless to say his locker room attitude doesn’t fit in with the golf crowd. Same old Sandler antics, but one of his first movies to make me laugh.
New Finds
While I already had my favourites lined up, I wanted to do some digging into the hockey movie archives and see what else I could come up with. I haven’t seen any of these films, but that’s only because I didn’t know they existed up until about a week ago. Please comment if you’ve seen any of them, and let us know what you thought.
Dropping the Gloves: Screened at the Atlanta Film Festival in 2004, this comedy relates the misfortunes of two pals who go yard-saling, only to walk away with the (unknown to them) cursed glove of Jean-Pierre Cul de Sac.
Hockey Homicide: Yes, there were hockey films allllllll the way back in 1945. Rather than being about a serial killer wearing goalie equipment (ahem), Hockey Homicide is about a single hockey game gone terribly out of control. It’s animated, it’s Disney, and it consists of two teams of Goofies unable to stay out of the penalty box. The fans themselves get into the action after being worked into a murderous frenzy by the on-ice antics. This is actually a follow-up to the 1939 Disney hockey film starring Donald Duck.
Chicks With Sticks: One for the Canadian fans out there. Kind of a hockey version of the Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs tennis battle of the sexes, a female player from Red Deer, Alberta finds herself the target of a hockey challenge against an annoying local men’s team. In order to prove the men wrong she must mould a crew of female players into a cohesive unit able to keep it together on and off the ice.
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POSTED IN: Film Reviews
2 opinions for Hockey Movie Red-Lighters
Chris D.
Oct 17, 2005 at 6:29 am
And did you know that they are working on The Cutting Edge 2? I just noticed that while trying to figure out if an actress in a movie I watched was Kate Mosely. Check it out here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463953/ Looks like DB Sweeny has decided that he doesn’t need a paycheck.
Erin Harvey
Oct 17, 2005 at 7:40 am
I think DB probably made a wise move. Sequels for a movie that has limited mass appeal generally go down the pooper pretty quickly. Mind you it’s not like he had a lot of other things going on…
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