The Charlestown Chiefs are a hockey team on a losing streak. Their coach, Reggie Dunlop (Paul Newman), is also a player. Their star player, Ned (Michael Ontkean), is a college graduate who preferred to 'slum' it as a hockey player. Ned's wife, Lily (Lindsay Crouse), is not at all happy about living in a working-class mill town, especially since her parents are rich and Ned has great prospects. The manager, McGrath (Strother Martin), scrounges for funds to keep the team afloat, including selling equipment and having the players model clothes. Enter the Hanson brothers. The Hanson brothers could be triplets but are actually 18, 19, and 20. Their style of hockey involves goonery, a frequent switch to violence and foul play to diminish the other team. Ned, an adherent to 'old-timey' hockey where skill and team play would win games, is horrified by the Hansons. Reggie isn't too keen on it either, but his views change as the Chiefs start winning and game attendance skyrockets.
To further complicate matters, the mill has closed and it is unlikely the team will survive with a crashing local economy; who will be able to afford to attend games? To keep morale up, Reggie concocts a story about a potential sale of the team to some Florida investors. He fed the story to sportswriter Dickie Dunn (M. Emmet Walsh) and radio broadcaster Jim Carr (Andrew Duncan). However, that's only temporary measures. If he is going to avoid the team folding, he needs to find out who owns the team, but McGrath won't say.
For its time, it was the most profanity-filled movie made. This may be the movie that inspired the old joke about going to the fights and a hockey game broke out. It is certainly a movie of its time with men wearing platform shoes, leather pants, turtle-neck shirts, paisley patterns, wide collars, and just generally loud clothing. All the cars are gas-guzzling land yachts or sporty muscle cars. Mostly, this is a movie that riffs on all things related to hockey and hockey players. There are no life-altering character arcs or deep messages, just a romp through the wild and wooly life of hockey players.
Good popcorn fun!
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