Figure 1 There have been some excellent films about hockey
Hockey is one of the fastest team sports on the planet, has cool logos, and games are routinely broken up by fights between players out on the ice. It is no surprise that hockey has also featured in some of the best sports films of all time.
There have, of course, been some dire movies about the sport (the less said about MVP: Most Valuable Primate, the better). But if you want excitement and upsetting the odds sport movie clichés, then you could do a lot worse than checking out some of the films on our list.
We are not saying that fans of sports betting in Canada would back many of the teams involved in these films – but there are some good action sequences to enjoy here if you are a fan of hockey.
Slap Shot, 1977
This movie is regularly described as the best hockey movie of all time. Modern viewers will be shocked by the film’s casual sexism and homophobia but there are also serious points made about the widening gap between rich and poor in 1970s America.
But the main reason people love Slap Shot is that it is about a team that uses the violence of the infamous Hanson brothers on the ice to turn around a losing season and challenge for the championship. If you want to know what small league hockey was like in the 1970s, watch this film.
The Mighty Ducks, 1992
There are plenty of sports films – both bad and good – that tell the story of a famous team. But it is not usually the case that the movie inspires a team to be formed. That’s what happened with The Mighty Ducks though, as Anaheim’s NHL team took to the ice just a few years after this movie came out.
It is a classic, heartwarming Disney affair about a team of kids who overcome their rich rivals, while still criticizing the win-at-all-costs attitude. Emilio Estevez is the coach of the team who leads his charges to glory.
Sudden Death, 1995
We fully admit that this is a controversial pick for one of the best hockey movies of all time. Whether you agree that it should be on this list probably depends on what you think of Jean Claude Van Damme. In Sudden Death, he must stop a terrorist plot to blow up a bomb during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.
Sure the movie is pretty dumb, but what do you really expect when it comes to Van Damme? To be honest, Sudden Death is more an action movie that uses the backdrop of a hockey game, rather than an actual hockey movie. But we love dumb movies too – so it makes the cut.
Figure 2 The pace of the game makes hockey a perfect sport for moviemakers
Miracle, 2004
Some of the best sports movies are based on true stories and this one tells the story of the United States hockey team’s incredible victory over the Soviet Union at the 1908 Winter Olympics. The ‘Miracle on Ice’ has gone down as one of the greatest hockey moments of all time and the film starring Kurt Russell as US coach Herb Brooks definitely lives up to that.
The Soviet Union was the best team in the world and had won the last four gold medals. They were expected to easily beat a US team made up largely of amateur players. But that’s not how things panned out and the most unlikely hockey result of all time spawned a celluloid classic.
Goon, 2011
This is another hockey movie that plays up the violence in the sport as its main selling point. But it does feature some of the best actual hockey scenes in a movie and shows how the sport values players that may not have the most skill in the world – apart from being able to pick a fight.
Sean William Scott is the eponymous goon who lays his body on the line for his teammates. The fight scenes are frighteningly brutal but Goon just about gets away with the violence needed to tell the story.
