The hockey of life

Rating: 9/10 (29 January 2005)

Just watched the movie again. It is a very witty movie that comments a lot, not only about hockey, but the American way of living in general and the average man as a part of it. The minor league hockey team in a small industrial town is in trouble. The team has obviously no future as well as their home town. Factory is closing down. People are losing jobs. Today, when every pro sportsman seems to be a zillionaire, it is quite surprising and refreshing to see how Slap Shot portraits the faceless and nameless minor league players as average working joes. Clever coach/player Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman) develops a new disinformation and game strategy to help the team survive. Women of hockey are portrayed as a three types. Reggie Dunlop's wife Francine is already on separating stage and will eventually leave his husband and hockey for good, Wife 2 is a solid figure who has accepted her role as a hockey wife, and Lily, whose husband is a skillful scorer and a sissy player Ben, will have in the end finally closer ties to his man than ever before. Part of coach's new strategy is to play hard, even criminally, and that is illustrated by the retarded Hanson brothers, who use every illegal trick imaginable. Team begins to win. They draw fans. Violence draws the attention. Violence is a way to gain followers. The main figures are men, so there are many male references to sex but naturally it doesn't belong to the ice rink, until at very last moment, when Ned Braden (Michael Ontkean) starts his famous strip tease number. The Syracuse Captain Hook type sees it as blasphemous. That eventually leads to the Charlestown's victory. Hockey as an example? TV as an example? When Reggie Dunlop finally finds his way to the owner of the team, he will hear the owner's kids are not allowed to watch hockey. The owner believes - categorically and straightforward way - that it gives harmful ideas. Right after that scene Reggie Dunlop hears on his car radio how one of his players, nicknamed "The Killer", praises his religion and peace of mind! When the hard hockey guys gather to the bar, what show are they watching on TV? A melodramatic romantic soap opera. Things are not so simple indeed. What Slap Shot really brings home, is the idea that the whole thing called "hockey", as any performance for the audience, is just a set of patterns. Violent patterns by Hanson Brothers are as possible as those blasphemous patterns by Ned Braden. If the coach Reggie Dunlop could dictate the rules, he would like to show class and play "old time hockey", but that idea leads to disaster in the first period of the final game. It's too late. Let's find out something else. Finally, in the victory parade, where whole township gathers to celebrate, we see the military bands, old war veterans, and they receive the victorious team as winning soldiers. This is the base where sports as well as every competition has been founded. To defeat the enemy and every obstacle. It is useless to criticize just hockey, in the case someone wishes to do so. It is just a part of society. And as we have very clearly seen, the hockey individuals are individuals from sex maniacs to followers of Eastern mystics. To make a generalization here, any generalization, is false. Essentially, whatever Slap Shot tells about "hockey", it tells about life. That's why it's such a great movie, and darn funny too. And finally, has there truly ever been winners and losers in the game of life?