A Textual Analysis of Ice Hockey Movies From 1977 - Present

5/20/2018 A Textual Analysis of Ice Hockey Movies From 1977 - Present

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A Textual Analysis of Ice Hockey Movies From 1977 - Present

Billy Hild

Media Theory - Communication Revolution

17 May 2014


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Abstract

This paper is a textual analysis of eleven hockey movies created from 1977 until 2011. It

looks at the underlying themes that surround the protagonist teams of each movie (are they a

Cinderella story?), how they portray the game itself (violent, finesse, etc.), how dedicated they

are (how much hockey footage they show), and how realistic the movies are compared to the

actual game itself. It was discovered that a large number of hockey movies celebrate fighting

(and overall violence) of the sport. Regardless of the time that they are depicting(it ranges from

the 1940s to the present), many of the movies are feel good sports stories that involve ragged

teams or individuals overcoming obstacles. The amount of time they show hockey on-screen

varies, but more than half of the movies studied consisted of at least 25% of footage (up to 45%).

Perhaps the most interesting discovery was how use of color on the teams uniforms and their

size are able to distinguish the roles of characters in the films: many bad teams are large, wear

red and black, and appear machine-like, while protagonist players/characters wear bright colors

(or red white and blue).

Introduction

Of the four major professional sports in the United States, ice hockey was the least

popular as of 2004: the television ratings are usually the lowest, and the sponsorship from

national brands is not as high as it is with baseball or football (Markus). Still, the National

Hockey League has made great strides in the last ten years with boosting its popularity, to the

point where this years outdoor Winter Classic was the second highest rated regular season

hockey game ever, only behind the 2011 Winter Classic (Iversen, 2014). Furthermore, the NHL

has actually been outplaying the NBA in their current playoff seasons, with Forbes magazine


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stating, According to TiqIQ, the average price for a second-round game in the NHL Playoffs

this year has been $403.16. That average is 37% above the average price of $294.38 for a

second-round game in the NBA Playoffs (Lawrence, 2014). Finally, the 2010 Winter Olympic

gold medal game (between the United States and Canada) was a record-setting game for hockey

ratings, being the highest rated hockey game on television since 1980 (NHL.com, 2010).

Ice hockey itself is a unique sport that requires a high skillset from the majority of its

players. Players on the ice must have the chemistry between their teammates to pass and create

scoring opportunities whenever they are playing. Players must know how to hit, pass and shoot

with a stick, and defend all while moving on a pair of skates, a much less natural motion than

simply walking or running. Players will have roles besides the position they play: some will have

the sole objective to score, others will specialize in being two-way offensive and defensive

players, and others still will try to annoy the other team into accidentally drawing penalties.

Finally there are enforcers, who have the job of using their presence to ensure that star players on

the team do not get hurt with hard hits from other teams.

The sports movie genre is generally profitable. The Mighty Duckswas such a

commercially well received movie ($50 million against a $10 million budget) that the NHLs

Anaheim Ducks were originally called the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, after the teams name in the

movie served as owner Disneys market research (LaPointe, 1992). Another movie for this

paper,Miracle, grossed over $64 million dollars at the box office. Many hockey movies have

been released over the course of the last 40 years, and they all depict the multi-faceted game in a

different way at first glance.

Literature Review


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Due to the nature of hockey as a sport, it felt obvious to review research on violence in

hockey as a whole. Fighting has been a part of hockey for decades. However reception that

fighting has recently received among analysts has not always been positive. Kale writes,

Supporters of fighting argue that it has always been integral to hockey. This brutal tradition

should be given up now that research has shown that repeated head trauma can cause severe

progressive brain damage (Kale, 2012). Still, players insist, according to Pappas, McKenry, and

Catlett (2004), Players enhance their value to their team by demonstrating toughness through

display of fighting skills; indeed, the ability to fight effectively becomes a coveted trait,

operating even as a means to indirectly win games through intimidation of the opposition and

targeting of key opposing players and The findings of this study indicate that interpersonal

aggression is common in the lives of these hockey players, both on and off the ice (p. 300). The

players in this study were former collegiate players.

One potentially troubling note about violence in hockey is the notion that much of the

violence is not checked and can lead to unethical behavior. Naturally, if players (at any level) are

allowed to get away with it, it may teach them that it is ok and the violence may gradually

escalate. According to Sheldon and Aimar (2001), athletes are often able to engage in illegal

aggressive behaviors that are reinforced by successful outcomes in the immediate future (p.

307). Ultimately, there is a masculine attitude surrounding hockey players: fighting is a duty that

they have to each other as teammates to ensure the teams victory. Some players even go as far

to say that the more penalties and the more physical their teammate is, the better, with Weinstein,

Smith, and Wiesenthal (1995) finding in their study that, Junior A players who had a higher

ratio of penalty minutes were ranked as more competent by their teammates (p. 843).


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Not only do the players view fighting and physicality as an important part of hockey, the

devoted fans do as well. According to a study done by Paul, Weinbach and Robbins in 2013, for

each additional fight per game that the home team averages, attendance at [American Hockey

League, the top hockey minor league in North America] games increased by almost 1,000 fans

(p. 31). Ultimately, all kinds of people associated with hockey view the integrated violence and

fighting as a crucial part to the game from interest and competitive standpoints.

The sports film genre has proven in the past to exhibit the more unethical practices that

could happen in the sports that they depict. According to Fountain and Finley (2009), The

results of [their] study provided support for the notion that gamesmanship has become more

important than sportsmanship...The effect is that cheating, violence, and other forms of deviance

come to be viewed as simply what must be done to win (Fountain and Finley, 2009). This can

prove to be a major problem, as Fountain and Finley (2009) suggest that, If young athletes

model the same type of behavior as the players in these films with the expectation that the

coaches, parents, community, and athletic system will tolerate the deviant behavior but this does

not happen, the athletes could be surprised to find out they may face severe consequences.

The Cinderella/"rags to riches" storyline is an often-used framework for sports movies.

Beyond the movies that will be discussed in this research paper, movies such as theRocky

movies and Cinderella Manare examples of this. Briley's (2005) theory is that the reason for this

is the Cinderella storyline, "[perpetuate] the idea that athletics provide a model for social

mobility in which hard work will prevail in the best tradition of Benjamin Franklin and Horatio

Alger" (p. 17).

A review of the selected films revealed that a majority of the movies contained the same

or highly similar color schemes and stereotypes for teams. Color is something that is very


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important in characterization and is something we do without even realizing it. Historically, dark

colors are associated with evil, antagonists, and villains. Black itself is the absence of color.

Musician Jack White once said that he prefers to use red, black, and white as a color scheme,

saying, I also think they are the most powerful color combination of all time, from a Coca-Cola

can to a Nazi banner. Those colors strike chords with people. In Japan, they are honorable colors.

When you see a bride in a white gown, you immediately see innocence in that. Red is anger and

passion. It is also sexual. And black is the absence of all that (Fricke, 2005).

Color is also frequently used in advertising. The 7 colors (red, orange, yellow, green,

blue, indigo, violet) are typically classified as warm or cool colors based on the feelings that

we may subconsciously experience when we see them. According to Talaei (2013), Yellow is a

good symbol for a heavy industrial strength for durable products, while darker blue colors

illustrate fear and grief (p. 27). Furthermore, it can be used as brand identification for food

(McDonalds yellow, Coca-Colas red, etc.),used to set the mood in a high-class restaurant (with

blue lighting), and Singh (2006) also notes that objects, seem larger and heavier under a red

light. On the contrary...objects seem smaller and lighter under blue light (p. 786). Still, Singh

(2006)points out that, Some feel that human responses to colors are stable, therefore applicable

to everyone, whereas others disagree, asserting that responses and preferences to colors vary

across culture, gender, and, age, among others (p. 786).Regardless of the differences in

interpretation that we may have between colors, it is generally agreed upon that, "Color has

always been used by human beings as an aid to recognize important information...it can aid an

individual's memory in retaining and recalling information in many activities..." (Pelet and

Papadopoulou, 2012, 440).

Methods


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The following eleven movies were selected for analysis for the sake of this paper, ordered

by chronological release: Slap Shot(1977), The Mighty Ducks(1992),D2: The Mighty Ducks

(1994), Sudden Death(1995),D3: The Mighty Ducks(1996),Mystery, Alaska(1998),Miracle

(2004), The Rocket(2005), The Love Guru(2008), Slap Shot 3(2008), and Goon(2011). Other

movies I tried to look for and acquire, but were not in print or otherwise able to be acquired.

I initially wanted to test if there was a correlation between the movies releases and the

average NHL ratings on television. This proved to be fruitless for two primary reasons. First, the

ratings date only back to recent times, the only real information I found that exists prior to that

was the highest rated NHL games in its history (and these were individual games as opposed to a

full season slate). Second,Miracle was released only a few months before the National Hockey

League would end up cancelling an entire season due to a labor dispute, so there obviously

would be no television ratings at that time. The Rocketwas released in Canada (and later, the

United States) only a few months after the NHL had ended that labor dispute and resumed play.

With the movie list assembled, I chose to do a textual analysis of the films relationships

to the game of ice hockey. They could be broken down into the following research questions:

RQ1) How is it depicted? Would it be as a finesse sport, or as a gritty, physical one?

RQ2) Is there a recurring theme between all of these movies, as they all focus on the

same sport, or is the only common thing between them that they simply show the game

on a superficial level?

RQ3) How dedicated to hockey are the movies; does it celebrate the game, or is it just

used as a convenient plot device? Finally, how much hockey do they actually show,

relative to the rest of the movie?


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To answer RQ3, I performed a content analysis for when a game or a practice was shown

on screen, as well as cuts to the scoreboard, to the bench during a game, or player introductions

(as these are all still part of the game experience itself). I did not count the game being shown on

a television screen unless the camera was obviously focusing on it (there were many moments in

Sudden Deathwhere the game being played was shown in the background on a small television,

but it is clear that it is only there to provide ambience and the focus was on other dialogue). After

getting the total movie time (excluding credits) and the total hockey time, a percentage would

be calculated to see how dedicated the movies were to the sport.

RQ3) Results of Total Hockey Footage

As far as hockey footage shown, the results typically varied by movie.Miraclehad the

most actual depicted time, with 46 minutes and 29 seconds total out of a two hour and nine

minute movie, accounting for approximately 36% of the movie total. However,D2: The Mighty

Duckshad the highest percentage of hockey footage compared to the total movie runtime, where

almost 45% of the movie showed hockey footage. Sudden Deathhad the lowest percentage, with

only 14 minutes and 38 seconds of hockey footage, good for 14.5% (The Love Guruactually

only had 14 minutes and 13 seconds, but the percentage was higher as the movie was much

shorter). The median percentage was 30.9%, while the mean was a very similar 31.2%.

RQ2a) Discussion of Teams Game Outcomes

The game outcomes for each team in each movie were noted, to partially answer RQ2.

This was occasionally difficult to do, as the movies did not always say whether the team

involved won or lost their games. InMiracle, the Olympic hockey team is shown winning five

games, losing one, and tying 2. Of those two ties, one (Norway) is viewed by the coach as a loss,

while the other (Sweden) is viewed as an important moral victory. Of those two pre-Olympic


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losses, the United States would come back to defeat both of those teams in the Olympics. In

Sudden Death, only one game is shown, and it is never clear which team wins as the movies

main conflict prevents the game from being completed (the two teams met in the Stanley Cup

Finals three years earlier, with Pittsburgh winning). In The Mighty Ducks, the team already has

amassed nine losses at the movies onset and for the rest of the movie will lose three more, tie

one, and finally win four (including the championship game). For the sequel, they win every

game except their first against Iceland, who they defeat in the championship game anyway. In

D3, the team only plays 3 games for a record of one win, one loss, and one (embarrassing) tie.

Most of the games in The Rocketare not depicted as wins or losses (there are at least two wins

and one loss), but it is pointed out at the end that Richard helped the team win five Stanley Cups

over his career. Finally, Slap ShotsCharlestown Chiefs are a doormat when the movie starts,

they end up losing 3 more games in the movies early portion, but rallies to win at least six others

(some not shown on screen) including the championship game by forfeit. The team of Slap Shot

3loses their first game, but ends up winning five others over the course of the movie, including a

championship over the team that previously defeated them. The Toronto Maple Leafs rally from

losing their first three games of the Stanley Cup Finals to win four straight games (and the

Stanley Cup itself) in The Love Guru. Refer to Appendix C for more information on the teams

game outcomes.

RQ2b) Discussion of Movie Themes

From a thematic sense, many of the movies seem to have the same basic outline. The

threeMighty Ducksmovies,Miracle, Slap Shot,Slap Shot 3, Goon, and The Rocketall seem to

have a rags to riches or redemption storyline that is typical of many sports movies (Rudy,

Rocky, Invincible, etc.). The teams in every movie are either constant losers or a group of people


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with very different backgrounds that have the odds against them. By the end of each movie, they

are all champions of their respective kingdom. Maurice Richard had many injuries early in his

NHL career and it was unknown if he would be able to keep playing. The Mighty Ducksteams

had to create team chemistry in the first two movies. When we are first exposed to them, the

team is playing with non-matching uniforms, jersey numbers created from masking tape, and (if

they are wearing helmets at all) football helmets instead of proper hockey helmets. By the third

movie, they were clearly one unified team (all choosing to attend the same school together), but

now had a new coach that the entire team did not get along with and had to learn to work with

before they could win games. InMiracle, old collegiate rivalries prevent the team from working

together at first and the powerful Soviet team embarrasses them 10-3 right before the Olympics

begin. In Slap Shot, the Charlestown Chiefs are shown as a constantly losing team with minimal

fan support and the player/coach later finds out the team has a strong chance of never playing

again after the season. Slap Shot 3has a similar story, as a real estate developer is looking to

totally demolish and rebuild the town, with the success of the hockey team possibly preventing

that from happening.Mystery, Alaskatakes a slight detour from the prototypical underdog, in

that the underdog team actually loses (to a professional team), and the close game is treated as a

moral victory. Finally, Goontells the story of a mentally challenged bouncer who is able to

become a hockey superstar when his talents as an enforcer are discovered. Sudden Deathdoes

not have any real theme to it, it is simply an action movie using a hockey game and arena as its

backdrop.

Discussion of Color Imagery in Team Uniforms

Almost all of the movies use color to portray who the good teams and bad teams

were. In theMighty Duckstrilogy, the primary antagonist teams of each movie (the Hawks,


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Team Iceland, and the varsity high school team, respectively) are all predominantly colored

black. InMiracle, the Soviet team is only depicted wearing their solid red colored uniforms,

while the United States is wearing their familiar and patriotic red, white, and blue jerseys. Even

in Slap Shot, when the Charlestown Chiefs have a white, yellow, and blue color scheme, they

still have shoulder patches depicting winged stars and stripes with the words, All-America

City. For the sequel, Slap Shot 3, the Ice Hounds team that the new Charlestown Chiefs plays

for a championship also is wearing a predominantly red uniform with black logos and numbers.

Mystery, Alaskawas a notable exception to this rule: the New York Rangers, who play the

protagonist team in the movies signature game, are also red, white, and blue and enter the game

skating next to a Statue of Liberty figure in the teams colors. While the Chicago Blackhawks are

not explicitly the bad guys in Sudden Death(they have no idea of the terrorist happenings in

the arena), they are wearing their red and black uniforms while winning a game that (for the

storys sake) they cannot win. Furthermore, the Penguins players in the dressing room before the

game are all wearing light blue undershirts (this may be a coincidence), while the main villian is

wearing a dark tuxedo. Slap Shotand Goonboth share the orange, black, and white fighting team

concept. At the time of Slap Shots release, the Philadelphia Flyers had come off of a season

where they had lost the Stanley Cup Final and won the two before that, with a roster that was

referred to as the Broad Street Bullies due to their very physical level of play. It should not be

viewed as a coincidence that the opposing team in Slap Shots championship game, which

assembles a roster of goons specifically for that one game, have an orange, white, and black

color scheme that is very similar to the one the Flyers used at the time. The same can be said for

the original team that the main character plays for in Goon. Refer to Appendix A for more

information on each teams primary colors.


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RQ1a) Discussion of Opponents General Appearance

A recurring theme in the movies (and many sports movies) is to make the adversaries

appear bigger, stronger, and more physically intimidating than the protagonists. InMiracle, the

first game against the Soviet Union shows a slow-motion shot of the Soviet players being much

taller than the United States team, and have expressions that are emotionless. The same can be

said about the Hawks, Team Iceland, and varsity hockey team in the threeMighty Ducksmovies

respectively. For the Hawks team and Team Iceland, their uniforms cover their entire body,

making them lose their human characteristics and appear more machine-like. InMystery, Alaska,

the New York Rangers get off of a helicopter wearing black jackets, their faces are never shown

because they do not fit on camera, with one person asking if all of the players were on steroids.

These stereotypes do not appear to apply to the teams in the Slap Shotmovies, Goon, or The

Love Guru.

RQ1b) Discussion of Fighting and Overall Violence

Ice hockey is a unique sport among the major North American professional sports in that

it is the only one where fighting is allowed within the rules of gameplay. It is also more physical

than basketball and baseball (and on par with football), checking and hitting opponents is a

crucial part of the game. Every film, even the childrens ones (such as The Mighty Ducks

trilogy), all depict fighting or violence in hockey in some way or another.

Violence and fighting play a huge part in some of the movies.Goonand Slap Shotare

two movies built almost entirely around fighting, where much of the game footage shown is of

brutal fights that leave blood smeared on the rink, the players faces, and their uniforms. Some of

the games played in these movies have no actual gameplay; they are just massive fights, and the

championship game of Slap Shot actually ends on forfeit because a player punches the referee.


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Aside from the violence in Slap Shot, the word fuck isspoken 98 times throughout the movie

and players repeatedly use vulgar insults (the main player told an opponent his wife was a

lesbian, something that would not be accepted in any way today). Slap Shot 3is also a violent

hockey movie, but it has more of an immature teenager feel to it. For example, the Hanson

brothers subtly clothesline an opponent as he skates by them on the bench, and one team forfeits

a game because it is implied the Chiefs gave them food poisoning. The Love Gurualso depicts

fighting: the guru himself tells the main character the key to getting his playing back on track is

to not fight. Later on, there is a bench clearing brawl that is started after the aforementioned main

character gets into a fight with another player that his wife left him for. Finally, theMighty

Ducks movies all portray violence as well: the first movie has two players from the Hawks cheap

shot a Duck player in the championship game after the coach tells them to do so, and the players

all get in a fight in school. The second movies two Iceland games are physical, hard-hitting

affairs where a player gets injured from illegal hits. The third movies first game between the

Ducks and the varsity team is portrayed as an epic matchup. It is a very physical game with

numerous would-be penalties, played in the dark with empty stands. An opera piece can be heard

over the game itself, adding to the atmosphere. It ends with a bench clearing brawl.

The rest of the movies have either minor fights or larger fights playing a subtler role.

Miracleonly has one real on-ice fight, during the teams first practice, but the central game is

played during the Cold War and the movie makes several references to that. The Rocketdoes not

have any fighting in the movies games themselves,but the suspension of Maurice Richard for

the rest of the season being played was enough to cause Montreal citizens to riot at the next game

(causing it to be forfeited) and having it spill over into the streets. Sudden Death is the one movie

with no in-game hockey fighting, but the overbearing plot of the movie involves numerous


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instances of hand to hand combat, including one duel above the now-open arena (Pittsburghs

arena had a retractable roof), while the hockey game below is in a sudden death overtime

session. Of all of the movies,Mystery, Alaskahas the least amount of fighting: it is restricted to

when the Mystery team watches a New York Ranger game on television for fifteen seconds, all

of which is a fight between two players.

What I noticed throughout the movies is that the violence was almost always tolerated.

More specifically, cheap hits in The Mighty Ducksmovies went almost entirely un-penalized by

the referees. The sole negative feedback really was inD3, where the team captain's mother

chewed him out for breaking his stick against the goal and throwing his helmet off in the penalty

box in a tough game. Slap Shothad a group of police officers attempt to arrest the Hanson

brothers after a game, but this was not a successful venture. The Chiefs teams in Slap Shotare

not able to win unless they play dirty hockey and create fights. This agrees with Fountain and

Finleys concern that the enabling of violence in sports movies may encourage real players to do

the same thing and believe they can in turn get away with it. Refer to Appendix B for more

information on the depiction of violence in each movie.

RQ1) Discussion of In-Game Realism

The movies realism demonstrated to be a mixed bag. The RocketandMiracle, being

biographical films, were the most realistic. They are filmed almost as if the viewer is right

alongside the subjects as the events depicted actually happened. The Mighty Ducks, Sudden

Death, Goon, and the Slap Shotmovies however, were entirely unrealistic and most of the

movies stunts would never be able to be done in a real game. The teams of theMighty Ducks

movies have a signature play called the Flying V, where the five skaters on the ice skate

downwards in a V formation looking to score. In reality, this could never be accomplished, as the


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puck must enter the opposing teams offensive zone before any players from the attacking team.

Either it would end in an offsides, or with the defensive team collapsing the play before it got

into the zone, leading to a huge advantage for that other team (this actually happened in the two

sequels). InD2: The Mighty Ducks, with the team playing in a junior international tournament,

they receive national attention in publications like USA Today as if it was the Olympics. In real

life, these sorts of tournaments would not receive such coverage. The cast is almost entirely the

same, with some new players as well. In a tournament such as this, it is hard to believe a national

team would consist of so many players from one team. From a playing perspective, in the second

game against Iceland, one player is called for a penalty when he throws a rope lasso around an

opponent. Another players signature shot is a knucklepuck, where the puck repeatedly moves

up and down after it is shot at the net. By the laws of physics, this is impossible. In Sudden

Death, the main character at one point ends up impersonating the Penguins goaltender and plays

in the game itself. Given the locker room security for NHL teams, this again would never be able

to happen. The final movie,Mystery, Alaska, shows hockey from a mostly realistic sense in

terms of how the game is played, but the premise of the movie is not realistic, and if an NHL

team was to play a team of villagers from Alaska, the game would probably be much more of a

defeat than it was in the movie.

RQ1c) Discussion of Game Portrayal

Tying into the overall realism is the imagery presented of the game itself in these movies.

In The Rocket, the players jerseys are made out of a wool or fabric material. Players did not

wear helmets, and goalies did not even wear masks. The first game, in Richards junior league, is

played outdoors on an undersized rink. While a complex glass and netting system now separates

the spectators from the ice, there was no barrier at this point except for the boards that surround


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the entire rink and short chain-link fencing behind both goals. By the end of the film, we can see

that rinks now have plexiglass installed around the rink, although the board advertisements are

not yet visible. Slap Shot is chronologically the next movie (as well as the flashback sequences

of The Mighty Ducks). We can see that goalies now wear masks, although they are the famous

primitive white fiberglass face masks. Players still do not wear helmets (the NHL itself did not

mandate helmets for new players until 1979) and the arenas have no advertisements around the

boards yet, but the jerseys are a modern material.Miraclewas similar, but all players were

wearing helmets by then and modern goalie masks began to see circulation. By The Mighty

Ducksand Sudden Death, the NHL rinks portrayed in the movies more or less resemble their

modern form, with the ice being painted with team logos, advertisements surround the boards,

and video scoreboards now hang from above center ice. The players are now playing with

modern equipment, even having transparent visors on their helmets (for eye protection), and

goalies were wearing the modern masks that they do today. It should be noted that junior and

amateur leagues require helmets with face shields (in the case of The Mighty Ducks).

Conclusion

It is no secret that hockey is one of the worlds most physical sports. It is also no secret

that the violence that stems from the physicality of the game is controversial, with diehard

hockey purists viewing it as necessary and supporting it. The movies that base part or all of

their respective stories on the sport of ice hockey also celebrate hockey violence. However, these

movies also celebrate the hockey team and the hockey player, and how odds can always be

overcome with team unity. Finally, and most importantly, they celebrate the game that they are

depicting as other sports movies do.


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Appendix A: Team uniform colors vs. main opponent team colors

Movie Team Team Colors Primary

Opponent

Primary

OpponentTeam Colors

Slap Shot CharlestownChiefs

Yellow, white,blue, USA logoon shoulder

SyracuseBulldogs

Orange, white,black

The Mighty

Ducks

The Ducks Forest Green,Purple, Yellow

The Hawks Black

D2: The MightyDucks

The Ducks/TeamUSA

Red, white, blue,later changed to

white, purple,and teal

Team Iceland Black

D3: The Mighty

Ducks

TheDucks/FreshmanHockey team

White, purple,and teal

The VarsityWarriors

Black, red

Miracle Team USA Red, white, andblue

Soviet Unionnational team

Red, white

The Love Guru Toronto Maple

Leafs

Blue and white Los Angeles

Kings

Black, purple,

white

Goon Highlanders Blue and orange No primaryopponent

Slap Shot 3 CharlestownChiefs

Yellow, white,blue

Ice Hounds Red, black

Mystery, Alaska Team Mystery Brown, gray,white

New YorkRangers

Red, white, blue

Sudden Death Pittsburgh

Penguins

White, yellow,

black (accent)

Chicago

Blackhawks

Red, black

The Rocket MontrealCanadiens

Red, white, blue No primaryopponent


20/21

Appendix B: Depiction of Fighting and Violence

Movie Team Fist

Fighting?

Injury from

playing?

Illegal hits? Bench

ClearingBrawl?

Slap Shot CharlestownChiefs

Yes Yes - but notserious

Yes Yes

The Mighty

Ducks

The Ducks Yes Yes Yes No

D2: The

Mighty Ducks

TheDucks/TeamUSA

No Yes Yes No

D3: The

Mighty Ducks

TheDucks/Freshman Hockeyteam

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Miracle Team USA Yes Yes Yes - SovietUnion slashesand scores agoal

No

The LoveGuru TorontoMaple Leafs Yes

No

No

Yes

Goon Highlanders Yes Yes Yes Yes

Slap Shot 3 CharlestownChiefs

Yes No Yes - fromspectators

Yes

Mystery,Alaska

TeamMystery

Yes

Yes

No

No

Sudden Death Pittsburgh

Penguins

Yes* No No No

The Rocket MontrealCanadiens

No Yes Yes** Yes***

*fighting was between movies characters, apart from the game itself**Richard was penalized and suspended for this hit (on a referee)***Suspension of Richard led to riot from fans at game


21/21

Appendix C: Depiction of protagonist player/team success and achievement

Movie Team Wins

Championship/Main

game?

Team/player losing

beforehand?

Slap Shot

Charlestown Chiefs

Yes

Yes

The Mighty Ducks The Ducks Yes Yes

D2: The Mighty

Ducks

The Ducks/TeamUSA

Yes No - but one gamefrom elimination

D3: The Mighty

Ducks

The Ducks/FreshmanHockey team

Yes Yes

Miracle Team USA Yes Yes

The Love Guru

Toronto Maple Leafs

Yes

Yes - main characterwas in a slump

Goon Highlanders No* No - main characterwas new to playinghockey

Slap Shot 3 Charlestown Chiefs Yes Yes

Mystery, Alaska Team Mystery No** No

Sudden Death Pittsburgh Penguins N/A - game does not

finish

No

The Rocket Montreal Canadiens No*** Yes

*Game is still in progress when movie ends, implied that team wins to make playoffs**Game is treated as a moral victory, despite the loss***Movie writes at the end that Richard would lead Montreal to numerous other Stanley CupChampionships

Documents

A Textual Analysis of Ice Hockey Movies From 1977 - Present