Awful nice of Kevin to allow me to grab the mic for two days while he goes to Calgary to “to see some friends” … which I’m pretty sure is man code for “seeing how many Flames Girls I can scam on the Red Mile by dropping ‘AOL Sports’ and ‘tight with James Mirtle.’” As the BMR czar mentioned, I write the NHL Closer weekdays at Deadspin and then trade my dick jokes for some modicum of journalistic integrity over on FanHouse and The Fourth Period. If you’ve heard of me, swell; if not, Welcome to Mooseport…
Although it appears I have slightly more jobs than a Jamaican cab driver, some of my ideas just don’t seem to fit any of these audiences. So I’d like to use this opportunity to bang out one of them here: The Best Hockey Moments in Non-Hockey Movies.
The criteria are fairly simple. Miracle and Mystery, Alaska are hockey movies. Happy Gilmour is disqualified because, essentially, it’s a movie about a hockey player. Also out is, other than Slap Shot, my favorite hockey movie of all-time: The Van Damme good Sudden Death. (I always wondered how many different “Die Hard in a ____” settings they went through before settling on the Stanley Cup Finals. “Sir, the North American Tiddlywinks Association has rejected our request to film at the Squidger Bowl.” “Dammit, get me the NHL!”)
With that in mind, here are seven of the greatest hockey moments in non-hockey movies:
The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983): Dave Thomas vs. hockey storm troopers. “The power of the Force stopped you, you hosers!”
Chasing Amy (1997): Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams have a frank discussion about the history of finger-cuffing at a minor league hockey game. The film also contains the second-greatest hockey video game moment in movie history, in which Jason Lee questions the masculinity of the Hartford Whalers nearly 15 years after they traded for Sylvain Turgeon.
Clerks (1994): Rooftop hockey and Jeff Anderson rocking a Devils hat. I actually attended the world premiere of Clerks at a movie theater in Hazlet, NJ. Kevin Smith and the cast were signing autographs. I think I remember saying something about “a bunch of nobodies” when I blew past them to the popcorn line. Hey, I was a fat kid.
Just Friends (2005): There’s a scene where Ryan Reynolds plays pond hockey and starts Phaneufing a bunch of preteens. Incidentally, if you haven’t seen it, Anna Faris gives what I believe is one of the single funniest comedic performances by a female in the last decade of film. Seriously, Netflix cue, pronto.
Lethal Weapon 3 (1992): Riggs and Murtaugh chase a dirty ex-cop at what’s supposed to be a Leafs/Kings game in LA. Joe Pesci gets shot on the ice. Says “OK” a lot. Braveheart saves him, after discovering he’s not a Jew.
Swingers (1996): “I took the Kings to the Cup.” “Yeah, against the computer with the off-sides off.” “It’s not so much me as it’s Roenick. He’s that good.”
Wayne’s World (1992): Let’s put aside Stan Mikita’s donuts for a moment; they play street hockey in black Chucks and Blackhawks jerseys, Committing To the Indian! well before it was the cool thing to do. “Game On!”
Any more?
Photos from Eclectric Dragonfly and View Askew.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
