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  PowerPlay Magazine

Gary Bettman & Slapshot: Just Trying to Capture the Spirit of the Thing


I'm about to declare something that is going to surprise some people. Maybe even upset them a little, but no matter. It has to be said.

And here it is:

Gary Bettman is a hockey fan.

...

No, no. It's true, and I think I can build a pretty compelling case to prove it.

Actually it’s more accurate to say Gary Bettman is almost definitely a fan of the movie Slapshot. Which if you haven't watched yet and call yourself a fan of hockey you owe it to yourself to do so. Now I'll admit the movie might not be to everyone's taste or sensibilities. It's possible to be a hockey fan and not like the movie all that much. But if you do like the movie, you are without a doubt a fan of hockey. And I'm pretty sure Gary is. Of both, that is.

I happened across this thought the other day when I found the time to watch this classic for the first time in many years. I was watching alone, and was therefore not distracted by the proclivities of child-rearing or spouse-appeasing. I was struck by how often prescient it was with regards to the game and business of hockey.

For instance whether or not for the purposes of the movie narrative the Charlestown Chiefs very clearly used what are now known as role-players. Ned Braden was the Gretzky-esque offensive player with a relatively light touch; Reggie Dunlop the Avery-esque pesky agitator; and of course the Hanson brothers were the designated goons. Slapshot was released in early 1977, filmed in 1976 and written largely in 1975. In the early expansion era professional hockey was played more like a team of Gordie Howe’s of varying skill and ability. Everyone was expected to shoot or pass regularly and hit and fight if need be (it being the time of the Broad Street Bullies this need was increasingly often, it must be said). Slapshot was written only a few years after Bobby Orr broke the mold of what a defensemen could be. But the role of a roving, offense-minded defenseman was nowhere near the norm in hockey line-ups, to say nothing of all the other roles to come.

There is also what has become known as the much-debated “southern expansion strategy” perhaps first mentioned anywhere as a mere plot device by Reggie Dunlop. When Dunlop almost randomly suggests to the reporter Dickie Dunn that there is a retirement home in Florida wanting to buy a hockey club for retiring Northerners and North-Easterners it is an impressive bit of foreshadowing for the business of hockey. In 1975 the oldest baby-boomers were not even 30 years old, and yet Slapshot could very well have planted this vital seed for all would-be ‘boomer hockey management types in the decades to come. It is Gary Bettman’s tenacious defense and support of this southern strategy, most visibly displayed with the Phoenix franchise, that suggests to me that the merits of this strategy were probably instilled in him at a fairly formative age. Perhaps even when as a clever young adult he was watching a satirical movie about a sport he claims to have “always” been a fan of.

This prescience extends most importantly into the issue of fighting in hockey and the ongoing debate surrounding it. It’s fighting that indicates to me most convincingly that Gary Bettman is a fan. The issue of fighting itself is not something I wish to include in the scope of this article, however if you think hockey should allow fighting then it’s likely you’ll also find the movie Slapshot at least somewhat entertaining. Bettman has been commissioner of the NHL for over two decades. He has controversially managed to change almost the entire business of hockey, and quite a few facets of the game itself. But one thing conspicuously stands out as being largely untouched over that time, and that is fighting. His latest quote on the issue is that he believes fighting is a “thermostat” that helps cool things down, and that there is disproportionate focus on the issue of fighting in hockey. Joe McGrath, manager of the Chiefs, could not have said it any better.

There is also the odd coincidence of the Anaheim Ducks (née Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) of the NHL and the Ducks team that squared off against the Chiefs in Slapshot to consider. I remember when the team was announced back in 1993 and agreeing with the widespread criticism of this literally “Mickey Mouse” name. The team was explicitly named after the Disney movie The Mighty Ducks, with Disney Chairman Michael Eisner going so far as to say the movie was all the “market research” he needed for the team name. In the intervening decades never has there been any formal indication of any connection between the Anaheim Ducks and any other hockey team named the Ducks real or fictional. But there was a fictional Ducks team in Slapshot, and they were modelled on the Long Islands Ducks of the now defunct Eastern Hockey League. It is not mere coincidence that these three hockey teams use the same animal as their name, logo and mascot.

The script for The Mighty Ducks was written in 1987, near the height of the Gretzky-craze in Los Angeles by Steven Brill, unemployed film school graduate and former peewee hockey player from the State of New York. While Slapshot had mixed critical and box-office success it quickly became a cult-classic among hockey players at every level. The sheer implausibility of randomly choosing such an unlikely animal for a team name suggests either Brill was inspired by the Ducks in Slapshot during his “youth hockey experiences”, or (what is somewhat less likely due to Brill's age) he had some intimate connection to the long since disappeared Long Island Ducks. Regardless Brill did say that even in his “wildest dream I never thought they would call [the team] the Ducks, let alone the Mighty Ducks”.

Furthermore there is Michael Eisner, chairman of Disney when they were awarded an NHL franchise in 1993. Eisner also hails from lower New York State, is obviously familiar with films, and since he’s a hockey fan actively supported a “big hockey culture” in Disney during his tenure. When Eisner was given the option to finance an obscure and unlikely movie called The Mighty Ducks he had the filmic Ducks from his professional experience and perhaps the real Long Island Ducks from his own or his staff's history and interests to sway him. Despite an eccentric movie title about a relatively niche North American sport obviously he ultimately was swayed to make that movie.

So it's not a strange coincidence but rather likely that The Mighty Ducks were named wholy or in part for the Ducks in Slapshot and/or for the Long Island Ducks of the former Eastern Hockey League. What this has to do with Gary Bettman is that like Steven Brill and Michael Eisner Gary Bettman also hails from New York State. In fact Bettman was born and raised on Long Island not far at all from where the Long Island Ducks and their passionate fans called home, Commack. So while Eisner said he had “been told no hockey player will play for a team called the Ducks”, Bettman very likely knew better.

Now I’m the first to admit this is all pretty speculative stuff. One could just as easily argue that with regards to fighting Bettman is merely following the money. Fighting is still popular among people who really like hockey, and unlike fair-weather fans those are the people that regularly buy tickets and paraphernalia, and allow the league to sell broadcast rights at a higher premium. Fighting, like sex, sells. Similarly it’s possible that with regards to naming teams Bettman has little or no interest, and no opinion on those matters so long as it doesn’t harm the bottom line of the business of hockey: Ducks. Geese. Unicorns. Whatever. And it’s also possible that the “southern strategy” for hockey expansion is and always was the brainchild of the NHL board of governors before Bettman, and that Bettman’s staunch and nearly unwavering implementation of this strategy is merely him taking his responsibilities of the job seriously.

All very possible individually, but added together the likelihood shrinks appreciably. Add in the curious foresight of Slapshot to the game and business of professional hockey today as a whole, a game and business that has been under the commissionership of one Gary Bettman for more than two decades, that likelihood shrinks appreciably more. One just might start to believe him when he says he couldn’t do this job for as long as he has if he wasn’t a genuine fan. Obviously I do, both of hockey and the movie Slapshot. I would even put money on it. He might even love the game as so many of us do from some deep and early impression.

But if so, one thing must be said:

He has one helluva funny way of showing it.





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