Slap Shot

Following The Sting, Paul Newman went into something of a down period in his career. He was still a huge star, but no doubt was pursuing other interests, such as car racing and salad dressing. Newman is only one of three men who have been nominated for Oscars in five different decades (Michael Caine and Jack Nicholson are the others) but he did it by skipping a decade--the 1970s.

His most significant film of the late 70s is Slap Shot, directed again by George Roy Hill. It's become something of a cult classic, especially with hockey fans, but it's really a bit of a mess, a sloppy comedy that's beneath Newman. If that sounds harsh, maybe it's because as a hockey fan myself, I've never liked the fighting aspect of the game. If you want to see that, watch Ultimate Fighting.

Newman is the player-coach of a minor-league hockey team. He's near the end of his career, and the team is in danger of folding once the town's mill closes. He tries to get interest in someone buying the team, but to do that the team has to win. With the addition of three goons, the Hanson Brothers, the team becomes extremely physical and manages to work their way up to the top of the standings. It's something of a Bad News Bears on ice.

Though I know hockey, I don't profess to being an expert on minor-league hockey of the 1970s. I'm used to the NHL and women's hockey (where there is no checking at all). Fighting is still an element of the NHL, but it's mostly for show, and brutality is met with swift and harsh punishment. The amount of bloodshed in Slap Shot seemed over the top, but in a DVD extra one of the actors who played the Hansons (who were real hockey players) comment that they taught the actors how to "stick fight," that is use their sticks like sabers, which today would draw not only long suspensions but criminal charges. Apparently it was tolerated back then.

I think much of the film's cult success is due to the Hansons, who were gawky guys wearing thick glasses and creating mayhem every time they took the ice. Not too long ago they had action figures made in their likeness. Call me an old sourpuss, but I like old-time hockey, which is passing and shooting, not throwing right crosses. At least in the film, Newman's character, in the last game, wants to go out playing that way. Of course it doesn't last.