Postgame Show: The Hockey Show's Favorite Hockey Movies
16:54 Share

You're listening to DraftKings Network.

Grab a bottle of Smirnoff at your local retailer and head to Smirnoff.com to find recipes of delicious cocktails perfect for game day. Please drink responsibly. Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka, distilled from grain, 40% alcohol volume. The Smirnoff Company, New York, New York. Please do not share with anyone under legal drinking age.

Hello, welcome to the Hockey Show. My name is Roy Bellamy. That's David Druock of the Hockey News. And we are going to talk about hockey movies coming up. We got ourselves a top five list of hockey movies that we believe are very good. We took a lot of time and effort into these rankings, so I hope you guys appreciate what we did. Well, you did. But first, some news on the hockey world came out this week as the Edmonton Oilers hired Stan Bowman.

as general manager and executive vice president of hockey operations. Stan Bowman, Joel Quinn, and Al McIsaac were suspended indefinitely in 2021 because they mishandled

Some sexual assault allegations by former Blackhawks player Kyle Beach against video coach Brad Aldridge. Aldridge has his name on the Stanley Cup. Or I should say had his name on the Stanley Cup for the 2010 team. Except the Hockey Hall of Fame edited it out. They handled a bunch of X's above Brad Aldridge's name. It's got to be like the biggest...

disparagement. It's not even like getting it erased. It's there with X's over it forever. Yeah, every time you ask, why is his name X now? Oh, because he sexually assaulted a player. That's awful. Three weeks ago, July 1st, Bowman, Quindle, and McIsaac were all reinstated by the National Hockey League.

So, three weeks later, the amateur haulers have decided to hire Bowman as pretty much head man in charge. Hockey czar. For the defending Western Conference champion. And the question is, why? Well, I see why. Like, if you want to dive into it, you can see why based off of the hockey X's and O's, the nuts and bolts, like what he did in Chicago last

when they were good. Like, he took over a team that was in win-now mode, and he helped them to win now for a few years. And so I can see why Edmonton, Edmonton very much in win-now mode, you know, arguably the top team in the West right now, heading into the season. It's what Aldrich, what Aldrich? No, no, not Aldrich. No. It's what Bowman did after the Blackhawks started winning Stanley Cups. That kind of

destroyed that dynasty, which is what draws the questions. And that's just the X's and O's element. We're not even talking about the morality and that whole part of hiring him. Taking a team that's maybe like, I mean, I don't know when Edmonton has been this high in terms of

excitement in terms of the team. They're viewed as maybe the best team in the West right now. And the fans are pumped. And now you bring in somebody that at least half the fan base, you have to think they're wringing their hands right now. Like, what the hell are they thinking bringing in this guy who's got kind of a scarlet letter on his forehead, for lack of a better term. If you are on the All-Ist roster, or you're an All-Ist prospect in juniors, or you might be on their AHL team, you gotta wonder, well...

How can we trust the organization if you have somebody who can't go to bat for one of the players?

Like Bowman did not. Right. And you got to keep in mind when these allegations happened, this happened during the playoffs. This happened during the Shark Series when the Blackhawks played them in 2010. Yep. That got swept under the rug. Nothing happened to Aldridge during that time. So what's to say that that happens again? One of the coaches, one of the people in the front office or player to player, what if that happens during the season and that happens again? What do you do?

It's tough. You have to think that this is something that's crept into a player's minds over the last week or so. I mean, how could it not? You would think that after what happened in 2010 and the, in the setting, in the place that we're living in right now, that if God forbid, something like that did happen, that the players would feel empowered enough to speak up about it, which probably wasn't the case, you know, 20 or 15 years ago when it happened in 2010. But it's just, it's a thought that players are having. That's not necessary. Right.

Like, was Edmonton that desperate? Did they zero in? Like, this is the guy. This is the only guy that's going to work for us because there's so much gray. Like, you know, it's so far from black and white with this. It's not right or wrong. Like, there's so much nuance to it.

You just wonder what was the decision-making behind it? Why was this the guy that it had to be? And this is another thing that I also thought about, that this is a retread. This is how the Mike Babcocks of the world keep getting jobs, because you keep going back to that well. At least the Panthers, they got Bill Zito. That was a former agent who was in the Columbus organization, who was assistant GM. They hired him, and now they're Stanley Cup champion. They didn't go with a retread. They went with somebody else.

Who proved themselves the oldest not doing that here? No, they're not and they're opening themselves up to a lot of scrutiny as I mean Obviously what we're talking about it. It's been you know widely discussed over the past few days and

in this day and age where so much is image and as I said I just keep going back to where the Oilers are right now like this is probably the best spot that that team and that franchise has been in since you know mid 2000s when they went to the Stanley Cup final and even then like that team that was kind of like a Cinderella type team that went to the final with like UC Markin and I think was their goalie and like Chris Pronder was on that team uh

Yeah, I just, I don't know, man. I'm curious to see how it plays out. And I'm rooting for this to all end up being okay. That, you know, Stan Bowman has learned his lesson. I mean, we know Sheldon Kennedy kind of went to bat for him. And that's kind of the big thing that they're hanging their hats on out there. And hopefully that this is just a big learning thing. And it shows that we can all get better and we can learn from our mistakes. But I have a lot of questions. And I'll be watching this very closely, as I'm sure a lot of people will be. Transition. Yeah.

All right. So this is where we talk about the top five movies that we have on our list. All right. Explain what we're doing here. All right. So Roy and I came up with a list of, was it like 11 different movies with a couple of sequels mixed in? They are, I'll go down real quick. Miracle, the Goon movies, the Mighty Duck trilogy, Slapshot One, only Slapshot One.

Youngblood, Mystery Alaska, The Tooth Fairy, Sudden Death, Happy Gilmore, and Most Valuable Primate. Now, we judge these movies on four criteria. Storytelling, acting, hockey accuracy, cinematography. We ranked each category from one to five. So the highest score any movie could get is a 20.

You may need to go back and re-listen or re-watch that to get it all, but this is where we're at. We did this yesterday, and I took a lot of time. I'll be honest. I went back and I watched footage. I put way too much time into this, but it was a lot of fun. So that's our top five hockey movies according to Roy and I. Roy? All right. So I'm going to start with what did not make my list off the board.

The Mighty Ducks. All right. So it was a zero on hockey accuracy. Let's get that straight. That's ridiculous. It was a one on storytelling. It was a Disney-fied story. Oh, my God. So get that out of here. The acting was bad. That was a one. And cinematography...

I'll give that a three. So that's off the board. That didn't make the list. I'll give you my stats on that. I'm with you, though. Mighty Ducks didn't make my top five. None of them did. They're just off, which is interesting. I wasn't quite as brutal as you were with...

Like the acting wasn't great, but they're kids movies. There was some decent acting. The cinematography was whatever. Yeah, well, kids acting. I give it good storytelling because I loved those stories when I was a kid. I gave them a four, a four, and a three on the storytelling. But either way, they're all out of my top five. All right. Let's go with, for me, outside looking in. That would be Happy Gilmore.

Listen, the acting, I'll give a two. Maybe, you know what? I'll give it a three because of Christopher McDonald. Yeah. So, Shooter McGavin, got yourself an extra turn on that one. That's exactly what bumped it up from a two to a three for me, too. Off my list, our most valuable primate, and the...

The Tooth Fairy, which the Tooth Fairy, go look up the cast in the Tooth Fairy. It is ridiculous. The cast that are like Julie Andrews, Billy Crystal, Ashley Judd, Stephen Merchant. Like this is like an all-star cast. Disney went all out for the Tooth Fairy. So those are not even outside looking in. Those are just straight off the board. Yeah. Well, because my fifth place is a four-way tie. So my outside looking in is kind of fifth place. You're doing ties here.

Well, because we did a score ranking. So I'll give you my... By the way, I'm not keeping count. I don't have a tabulator. I don't have a calculator. I don't have a paper here. You're good. I've got a pen. As long as you remember your top five, we're good. So my fifth place with 14 points each were Happy Gilmore, Slapshot, Goon 1, and Goon 2. Goon 2.

So that's fifth place, four-way tie, four, not even bronze medals because it's fifth place. Yeah. But no, I mean, look, the Goon stories are great. I love both stories. I thought they're great. The hockey accuracy is actually pretty good in the Goon movies. The hockey accuracy in Happy Gilmore, I give it that too because he's taking slap shots to play golf. So I'll give him that. Oh, okay.

Good God. And also, I don't even, did I mention Slapshot is fifth place for me? Tied for fifth? Uh...

Slapshot. I gave it a four. I gave it a four for storytelling, and I gave it a four for cinematography, because those old arenas, I love them. Hockey accuracy, just a three. And acting, I mean, hand-ra-hand! Yeah, that doesn't hold up, by the way. Yeah, not so much. You can't say the line from that particular movie. No, no, no, no. Cannot do that. Most good movies from that era do not hold up these days. Yeah. Number five for me is Mystery Alaska. Number five.

Okay. The acting is, I would give it a four on acting. Okay. Because Hank Azaria, I would say that is his most normal character that he's ever played. Yes. He's normally a voice actor. That was all his voice. Yeah, that was all his voice. That's all him, basically. Okay.

Hockey accuracy, I would say, why would the Rangers do that? Yeah. So, a one. But, you see, when I'm talking hockey accuracy, I'm talking like the hockey action in the movie. Okay. Yeah, sure. That was pretty good. The hockey action in the movie, yeah, sure. No NHL team is taking a mid-season break to go play.

Bond hockey? Yeah. Let's don't risk getting injured on a non-certified ice. The cinematography is a three because... Oh, dude. Let me be sure. Cinematography for me was a five. That was gorgeous. Come on. Cultures and stuff. All right. Fine, fine, fine. All right. My number four is Youngblood.

I gave it a four for storytelling. Awesome story. Keanu Reeves was the goalie. Patrick Swayze, you know, it's great acting as well. Hockey accuracy, I gave that a four. Cinematography, I gave it a three. But just a great hockey movie. Yeah. Cynthia Gibb, gorgeous. Number four for me is Sudden Death. Okay.

Now, the acting was... The acting is very, like, peaks and valleys. Because Jean-Claude Van Damme is Jean-Claude Van Damme. But Powers Booth? Yeah. He's good. He's up there on the lines. The dude that played Hallmark, whose name I can't think of?

Oh, man, he was in Full Metal Jacket. Yes, he was. I forgot his name. But yeah. Yeah, he did some decent acting in that movie. Damien. Damien Hallward. Ah. There it is. Wow. That's some good recall right there. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, terrible acting, but in a good way. I would give that a three, just based on Powers Booth. Just like Christopher McDonald.

Yeah, storytelling is pretty grippy. I gave it a five for storytelling. I gave it a four. They dropped a helicopter into the igloo. Yeah. So Sudden Death is my number three. So I gave it a five for storytelling. I gave it a four for acting and cinematography because, as I just said, just cool use of the igloo. Hockey Accuracy, I gave it a three because it looked good but so far-fetched.

Yeah. Get your ass back in there. Absolutely. Absolutely not. I think a head coach would notice that his goaltender. It's perfect because coaches don't know goalies at all. Just ask Paul Maurice, who says he doesn't know anything about goalies. It's just saying it fits. Miracle was my number three. Oh, yeah. It was excellent at five. Excellent acting. Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks.

Great job in that movie. Hockey Accuracy is a docudrama, so that's going to have to be a five. Yeah. But Storytelling, Disneyfied, so I would have to give that like a three, unfortunately, on that one. And, of course, Cinematography is always going to be good on that one. Oh, yeah. Number two for me was Mystery Alaska.

I gave it a three for storytelling, but I gave it a four for acting. I thought Russell Crowe was really good. The girl who played his wife, who I can't remember, I think Nancy something. Just really good across the board. The girl who does the cheese commercials, she was the news reporter that Stank Martin tried to hook up with. It's just funny. The cinematography was amazing, and I thought the hockey action was pretty accurate, too. So 17 out of 20 for Mystery Alaska. Goon is my number two.

Yeah, Goon was an excellent movie. I loved that movie. The acting, I mean, come on. I gave Goon four for acting. Yeah, really? I did. I gave it a four for both movies for acting. It's a great cast. Leo Schreiber is the man. Yes. The voice of Harkness. Storytelling as a comedy...

All this is far-fetched, so I give it a three. Yeah, same. Hockey accuracy, I mean... It's pretty good. I'd give them fours. Yeah, yeah. The pads are on straight. They look good. The hockey action looks pretty accurate. The one thing I would thing them on is, towards the end of the movie...

their playmaker getting a five minute major for high sticking would normally be a game misconduct. Well, yes. Yeah, so that's something I would absolutely give them. That knocks it down from a five to a four, yeah. Yeah, but otherwise, excellent movie. So my number one, Miracle. Miracle.

Amazing hockey movie. The only thing that didn't get a five from me was, you're going to throw something at me, it's the acting. Just because the high end, the Kurt Russell, the Patricia Clarkson, the professional actors were great. And one or two of the hockey players were professional actors. The rest, like the guy who played Mike Aruzzione, God love him. The man out of state of America.

You know, you could tell that they weren't professional actors. But overall, I mean, it's just, I gave it 19 out of 20. It was, it's an amazing hockey movie. And number one for me is Slapshot. Slapshot.

Cream of the crop, except it does not hold up. Except we can't watch it in public anymore. We cannot watch it in public. I mean, you got one of the greatest actors of all time in Paul Newman. Yeah. He said he had so much fun doing that movie. It's his most favorite movie. So, yeah, give that to him. And the hockey accuracy, I mean, was a lot of line brawls in that shot. There were some very true elements.

Very true elements to that. And also the Hanson brothers are like iconic. Yeah, yeah. For like four decades now, those guys have like been part of hockey lore. Yeah, so that's our top five lists. Not bad. You probably won't agree with us. Maybe you will agree with us. But we're just filling content in the offseason. So what do you want us to do? So the next one that we're going to do is we're going to rank fictional hockey players. And that one is going to take an even deeper dive, I think. Yeah. Because that's more than just movies.

We got to get into like Shorzy. Yeah, television. Yeah, so that should be fun. The blueberry bulldogs. What's up, Barry? Hey, look at your jersey. Your hoodie. All right, see you next week. Goodbye.

A lot has changed over the years, audience. As you've been so kind in pointing out, my shirt size has changed over the years. Look, I started this show as a 19-year-old boy, and now I'm a 38-year-old dad. But along the way, one staple of my life has been Miller Lite, and those of you that have been listening to us know this. I've been a Miller Lite guy since day one. I've been pretty honest about that. So let's get down to the nitty-gritty.

What is the best thing about the original Lightbeer Miller Lite? It sparked this debate way back in 1975 and we still haven't settled it. For me, it's the undebatable quality.

It's great taste and it's less filling. Whether you're out with your friends, at a game, at a bar, in the shower, Miller Lite delivers Miller time every time. You don't have to choose what's best about Miller Lite. It has great taste and is less filling. Tastes like Miller time. To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door, visit MillerLite.com slash Dan, or you can find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories per 12 ounces. Fewer cows and carbs than premium regular beer.