Friends of hockey movies put you next Sport

After making a list of my favorite baseball movies in recent weeks, I realized that the 7-year-old had never seen Sandlot.

He was pretty scary when he had to watch the hour Rudy, but I assured him this would be different. He never took his eyes off the screen during a 101-minute drive. His stomach laughed at least twice, he became sad when the dog Hercules was crushed under the fence, but most importantly, he asked about playing baseball.

It is the beauty of sport. It can change the mind of a child who is never interested in sports. It did the same for me. I played hockey for five years because of The Mighty Ducks. I was trying to try football in eighth grade when I saw Remember the Titans, and I started riding my mother’s race bike after seeing Breaking Away.

Movies can create a love of sports. That is why they are so important. This week I want to bring out the top three hockey movies. As with last week’s baseball, Ill listed three dramas, comedy and children’s choice.

Honestly, this week the choices are almost too easy. There is no better hockey drama than Miracle. The 2004 Disney film, starring Kurt Russell, sparked an audience with Miracle on Ice at the 1980 Winter Olympics, where the U.S. hockey team defeated the Soviet Union. By returning the character Herb Brooks to those who may have never heard of him, the film evokes patriotism and the power of sport to nationalism.

In the film, Russells ’character, Brooks, lobbies to become the head coach of U.S. teams. Seeking compensation for being expelled from the 1960 Olympic team, he assembles a team of college students and retrains them in a European style of play. They meet in the Soviet semifinals and win without being blocked by one goal in the last 10 minutes of the game. It all ends with TV anchor Al Michaels ’famous line, Do you believe in miracles? Yeah!

I dare to find one hockey fan who wouldn’t choose Slap Shot as the biggest comedy in the sport. The cool hand Luke and those miserable openings that Paul Newman had to dig were the first introduction to the layered actor, but Slap Shot is always my strongest memory of him. Its all-time-producing hockey film with customized box office revenue of $ 151 million, it continues to linger as an all-time sequel film regardless of genre.

The plot of the film revolves around Newman’s character, Reggie Dunlop, a Charleston Chiefs player and coach. The team has seen better days, as has the city of New England where it plays, and the closure of a local factory threatens the team’s end. When Dunlop finds out that the upcoming season is the last of the teams, he uses Goon hockey and acquires Hanson Brothers, whose brazen game awakens fans and turns the team around. It’s an entertainment course the NHL has never forgotten.

There are only three hockey films that have amassed more than $ 100 million in custom ticket revenue. Two of them are in the Mighty Ducks series. The Disney trilogy began in 1992 and changed my life forever. My generation was too young to know or care about Bad News Bears, but Disney got the message through the reactions of young audiences to The Mighty Ducks. It was followed by a long series of 90s children’s sports classes such as The Sandlot, Space Jam and Little Giants.

In Mighty Ducks, Emilio Esteves ’character, Gordon Bombay, is expelled from the DUI and has to perform public service as a coach for the poorest and least skilled hockey teams in the districts. He learns the value of the game as he leads a blatant set against his old, offensive coach, played by Lane Smith. In the future, a group of children will represent the United States at the Peewee World Championships, where they won with the help of the Icelandic Bash Brothers, modeled on the Hans Sons Shot brothers.

Among the top four professional sports in this country, hockey is the least watched by a large margin, but its films are still timeless and can easily turn any casual viewer into a hockey player.

(Send comments or questions to [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @zacknally)