Today's Movie: Slap Shot

This is a personal favorite of mine. I'm a huge hockey fan and the late Paul Newman is one of my all-time favorite actors but, in addition to that, this is also a really good movie full of memorable characters and quotable lines.

1977's Slap Shot centers around a minor league hockey team called the 'Charlestown Chiefs', and their player-coach Reggie Dunlop (played by Paul Newman). Charlestown is a factory town on the decline and the Chiefs aren't very good, so the team's manager does everything he can to cut costs while simultaneously having the players participate in sometimes embarrassing promotions just to keep the team afloat. During yet another losing season, the team picks up a trio of enthusiastic players known as the Hanson brothers who play a rough and tumble style of hockey and start fights. Dunlop is initially reluctant to play the three brothers until one night he gets word that the team is going to fold after this current season. Being a better con-man than a player or coach, Dunlop convinces the team to start playing dirty, and to get into more fights to draw interest, eventually he lets the Hanson's loose and they become a force to be reckoned with on the ice. This tactic begins work, the Chief actually start winning, and fans start showing up to the games to cheer them on. With interest in the team growing, Dunlop plants a false story with a local sports writer saying that a retirement community in Florida is interested in purchasing the team, with the hope that the story will add to the teams confidence and hopefully lead to an actual sale.

Well, after trying for quite a while Reggie gets a meeting with the team's owner but despite the teams recent success she still has every intention of folding the franchise for a tax write-off. Disheartened by this news, Dunlop comes clean to his players about the team folding and the story about moving to Florida being made up. In the end, the Chiefs make it to the championship game and, because one of the opposing players punches a ref, they actually win. It's the perfect dumb-luck victory for a team that only started winning after they threw clean play and good sportsmanship out the window. I love it.

Start to finish I always have a lot of laughs whenever I watch this one. In my opinion, it's one of Paul Newman's best performances (which is saying a lot), and one of the all-time best sports movies.
I highly recommend it.

I give this one a 4.5 out of 5.

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