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It’s nearly Academy Awards time, which means that it’s time to think about a genre of cinema that’s truly given us some of the seminal classics of our time. And when you’re finished thinking about sweeping historical wartime epics, why not spend another 15-18 seconds considering hockey movies, won't you?
Yes, hockey movies, of which there are several besides “Slap Shot”. Allan Muir of Sports Illustrated listed his top five and bottom five (or so) of all-time this week. And just like revealing that Cobie Smulders is actually a ghost in “Safe Haven”*, we’ll just go ahead and spoil the list for you:
The Best
5. Mystery, Alaska (1999)
4. The Rocket (2005)
3. The Deadliest Season (1977)
2. Goon (2011)
1. Slap Shot (1977)
Great to see the love for “Goon”, which captures the pro hockey experience in some ways even better than “Slap Shot” did. (Although there’s no touching the latter film’s characters, heart and raucous spirit.)
Obviously, the biggest omission here is “Miracle”, which features an honest-to-goodness Oscar nomination worthy performance from Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks. But I haven’t seen “The Deadliest Season”, so I can’t protest too much, except to say that I’d still slot "Miracle" ahead of “Mystery, Alaska”, which has more slow moments than Hal Gill.
Perhaps you feel another film was snubbed. Say, like, “The Mighty Ducks” or “Youngblood”. Well, they weren’t exactly snubbed. They just ended up on another less laudatory list.
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