What’s the Greatest Hockey Movie of All Time?

[MadLuke]

The movie has one script writer, Nancy Dowd.

One credited, which is a bit different in Hollywood, but regardless a movie director/producer/editor/Newman level of actor can have intention has well and can infuse the final product with them, it is an heavy collaborative medium and they can collide, making both intentions true (glorifying violence, condemning it) and which "win" is often the one that people remember/enjoyed the most. Fight Club is another one of such movie.

 

[ThatGuy22]

Like others mentioned. Red Army I'd a fantastic documentary, I'd put above the rest.

Then:
Slapshoot
Goon
Youngblood
Miracle
Mighty ducks
Mystery alaska

 

[ThatGuy22]

I'm pretty sure you two are putting more thought into the themes of Slap Shot than Nancy Dowd did...

 

[notDatsyuk]

"Strange Brew" is more of a hockey movie than "Happy Gilmore".

It's also a better movie than "Miracle" (unless you're American, I guess).

 

[tarheelhockey]

I think that 2 different thing, maybe the movie intention is to make the biggest box office possible and for which it will glorify and make violence a fun spectacle to watch and will balance it with line about being wrong (like MadMen did with smoking after the sales of Lucky strike exploded, no one would doubt that MadMen series did try to make drinking/smoking look really cool, which is easy to do because it is) to make it more palatable and even more large public, in that situation we do not know the actual intention of the movie.

There is a lot of intention of a lot of people that goes into a movie beside the writer, editor, producer, director, powerful actor and so on.

Let just say I doubt I would have liked a movie that much that tried to convince me to ban fighting in hockey, making fun of LHSPQ type of league yes, trying to make an audience leave the movie thinking violence and fighting should be banned of the NHL, not at all, imo and that an opinion, we cannot know the movie has a whole intention nor the writer, even by reading the text, looking at is background or is stated intention, that all speculation and trying to read someone mind (and that if that person was even being honest with themselves to start with).

With that said you could obviously be right and maybe the movie failed miserably, but if the movie intention were make the biggest box office possible and for which it will glorify and make violence a fun spectacle to watch and will balance it with line about being wrong, it was a giant success.

I don’t think the message was to ban fighting. The Dowds were hockey people, raised in the 1960s… they undoubtedly understood that fighting has a certain “special” role in hockey that is different from other sports and very hard to separate from the parts of hockey that are worth watching.

It’s more about professional hockey in the 1970s, specifically. The professional game changed during that time period. The NHL had expanded quickly and then been raided by the WHA. A bunch of minor leagues had popped up and expanded on speculation, then had trouble filling rosters with anything close to pro-level talent. By 1977 those leagues were imploding financially, and desperate to sell tickets to small American towns with no history of hockey.

The way the movie portrays minor league hockey in those years is only a slightly cartoonish version of the reality. Even the NHL had gone crazy with bench clearings and players fighting in the stands… in the two years leading up to the movie, there were FOUR different criminal cases against NHL players for on-ice violence. Imagine how bad it was in the minors. The movie isn’t trying to get rid of fighting, but rather to point out that “professional hockey” had become “let’s pretend this is a hockey game so we can legally sell tickets to watch two armed gangs fight each other”.

I'm pretty sure you two are putting more thought into the themes of Slap Shot than Nancy Dowd did...

I doubt that very much. Nancy Dowd is a legitimate writer and the script is brilliant. It’s not a shallow movie.

 

[FrozenJagrt]

For me it was a coin flip between The Rocket and Goon with Slapshot at third.

Miracle is overrated. The movie and the story it's based on.

 

[Puckclektr]

The Last Big Save

Unreal movie. and award winning.

Just watched this a few nights ago. Spellbinding. I don't even know what that means but it was spellbinding

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

YOUNGBLOOD

Youngblood.

Not on the list is Legend No. 17. It’s a Russian film about Valeri Kharlamov and the Summit Series as well. The hockey scenes are pretty decent, it’s easy to find on YouTube, had to guess what they were saying but it was a decent watch.

Do people actually like Youngblood, or is it so bad it’s good? I honestly don’t know, I watched it at like 15 and just did not get it at all. Bad hockey, who cares plot, meh acting- what’s the appeal?

And for the first time in my life I’m using the term AINEC

Lol I remember rewinding to show my parents parts where it was clearly just a short guy playing- “no shit, you think they trained a monkey how to shoot?” or somethin was my dad’s exacerbated response after a fifth rewind of the stupidest scene possible. God animal movies were dumb.

Anyways, I gotta go mighty ducks. There might be better movies if I watched em all now, but as far as cultural impact- quack, quack, quack, quack.

 

[NoGoalCaufield]

Just watched this a few nights ago. Spellbinding. I don't even know what that means but it was spellbinding

Joey Bird will fly high Again!

 

[Rangerboy030]

I voted Miracle... But almost straight away I realised I should have voted Mighty Ducks.

The Mighty Ducks is known all over the world - even in countries where most people have no idea who Wayne Gretzky is. Don't think that can be said about any of the others in the list (except perhaps Happy Gilmore, but that's a golf movie, not a hockey movie).

 

[Nogatco Rd]

And for the first time in my life I’m using the term AINEC

Ah yes the elusive Ryan Hopkin-Nuggets

 

[biturbo19]

I hesitate to call any of the Mighty Ducks movies "great" really. But they're where my vote goes here. Side nod to Mystery Alaska. That's a pretty memorable one too.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Joey Bird will fly high Again!

Oh god. That Frank D’Angelo movie. It was terrible.

The best hockey movie was Red Penguins. Yes it was a documentary. If it was fictional, you’d have said the writers were getting carried away.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Depends on what you mean by "greatest" OP. Slap Shot is an awful movie in many ways, but is fun and is a hockey institution, so its going to get the vote most of the time, but there are countless better hockey movies out there, like Goon, Miracle, Mystery Alaska, some of the old CBC made for TV's (The Don Cherry Story, Net Worth), or my personal favourite, The Rocket. But none of those have the iconic status of Slap Shot, even if it is a pretty awful movie.

 

[Puck Dogg]

Miracle and Mystery Alaska are probably the two better hockey movies. Slap Shot, the Goon and Youngblood are not serious, they're entertainment. (Youngblood probably tried though at the time). The Mighty Ducks series are kids movies.

I don't rate documentaries as hockey movies per se because they are, well, documentaries.

 

[Lays]

I watched Miracle at least 50 times when I was a kid. Has to be first. Goon would be second for me. Underrated movie among the hockey community for whatever reason. Rarely see it referenced or brought up but was a fun movie

 

[Gliff]

Missing D2.

 

[The Red Line]

Has to be Slapshot still. Yes the second half is a disaster and completely falls apart. But the first half antics are just too classic.

I grew up with the Mighty Ducks, fun nostalgia but nothing touches Slapshot. Happy Gilmore is not a hockey movie any more than Face Off is.

 

[JoVel]

The only hockey movie I've ever watched is Goon. I'm a disgrace, I know.

 

[ElysiumAB]

Let em' know you're there!!!

 

[aufheben]

Youngblood AINEC.