I’ve got a tradition leading up to every opening day for the MLB season. I watch a different baseball movie every day the week leading up to the season. This is a pretty easy thing to do for baseball because there was a time where Hollywood was obsessed with baseball movies. I decided this year I should get ready for the NHL season the same way. Here’s my movies to watch that will get you ready for the puck dropping on Tuesday.
Slap Shot
The best of the best of hockey movies. Sometimes comedies get things right more than a drama and Slap Shot is just that movie. From the opening scene where you have a goalie that barely speak english explain the rules of hockey, you’re immersed in the Chiefs. You get a bit of 70s nostalgia where they have terrible things on tv – bowling or aerobics or terrible cable access programs. Now we haven’t even gotten to the famous Hansen brothers and the temptations for minor league hockey to border on the line of pro wrestling. It all comes to the circus that a minor league team has to go through, while still bringing in the heart of a hockey team. At any hockey arena you’re guaranteed to have a Slap Shot night in some form or another, it’s the epitome of the hockey sports movie.
Youngblood
A young Rob Lowe… that’s your pitch to get the women in your life included in the fun. For whatever reason in the 80s movies had to start off on a farm. Take the hockey out of Youngblood and it might as well be Footloose without the music or John Lithgow complaining about dancing. The best part about Youngblood though is that it showed the contrast between American hockey and Canadian hockey at the time. Go back to 1986 and you’d be hard pressed to think that any Canadian would think an American can make it through their junior leagues and minor leagues. This movie is full of 80’s cliches… montages, uplifting underdog story, farmboy, and pretty much anything they pushed out back then… but it’s still a great watch.
Untold: Crime and Penalties
Easy selling point, it’s on Netflix so you have almost no reason not to check this one out. I admit, I was hesitant the first time I saw this come out, a 17 year old mob boss son runs a minor league hockey team. It’s better than that though. Timing is a spectacular thing, the Trashers were in their short-lived hey day when the NHL was locked out and cash under the table let them get anyone and everyone they wanted. It’s a fantastic watch that’ll make any hockey fan imagine running a pro team.
Goon
Stifler plays hockey. That’s really all you need to know about this movie. It’s not very good, but the guy you probably hate is out there beating up people you hate more. Combine those two things and you suddenly have someone you can root for. Again, the list of hockey movies is a bit small, but anytime a movie gets a sequel it has to have some success. So Goon get’s added on the list.
Miracle
Sure this is about the Olympic hockey team. Sure it’s a Disney, having way too much overcoming adversity storylines. But it’s still got plenty of hockey elements to make it great. If it weren’t a true story it would be terrible and ranked closer to Mystery Alaska but more on that one later. Kurt Russell played Herb Brooks about as well as anyone could. This is the biggest hockey moment in American history and it delivers on that American dream storyline.
Mighty Ducks
The story of a washout hockey player turned douchebag lawyer who gets a DUI and is forced into community service. That lawyer turns a ragtag bunch of peewee hockey players wearing football gear for some reason into a peewee championship team in Minneapolis… or Edina… or St Paul… it wasn’t quite clear. But it was clearly written by someone who had never been to the Twin Cities and didn’t realize the distance between the cities and the number of youth hockey programs between the 3 cities that would have limited who and where they were playing. Add in the D2 version where they start claiming being from Fridley and Roseville… like any parent would drive their kid 20 miles to be on a team with this washout coach in a mediocre league. Then somehow Coach Bombay has a best friend Hans who only follows youth hockey like some creepy Catholic Priest. The only part about this movie that is believable as an adult is Charlie getting preferential treatment because Gordon Bombay wants to hook up with his mom. Anyways, it’s still a fun trip down memory lane. Just ignore the nonsense, the flying V, the terrible jersey colors, the perfect boss name you “Ducksworth”, and a driver in Minnesota being scared driving on ice, and you might have a good time. Really though it’s the movie that made a generation pursue hockey so it deserves being on this list.
Mystery Alaska
Pond hockey is fantastic. Russell Crowe as an Alaskan isn’t believable. Getting the New York Rangers (why them specifically?) isn’t believable. But it’s still a fun underdogs vs the superstars movie. We get the chance every Olympic year to see how NHL players fare on the larger Olympic size sheet. But make it even larger, not sure why – whenever I’ve seen pond hockey it’s been smaller teams on a smaller sheet of ice with what can only be described as the cornhole of hockey goals. But I guess the Hollywood writers and producers wanted to make a fun fanciful ride for hockey fans.
Homerable Mention
The Rocket
This might be the first hockey movie of all time. I’ve never seen it, but it shows up on most top hockey movies lists. So I have to add it as an honorable mention.
Les Boys
A French Canadian team does some cool shit. I’ve never seen it but that’s what I get from the IMDB page.
The season starts tomorrow, but if you need some entertainment before the first puck drops check out any of these moves. If I’ve missed any, let me know and I’ll probably add it to the must watch list.