The Bechdel Cast - Rerun: In Memory of Mike Loftus (Slap Shot)

Episode Date: July 25, 2024

This week, we’re re-airing last year’s episode on Slap Shot in honor of Jamie’s dad Mike Loftus, who passed away over the weekend. Little new intro to accompany. You can learn more about the amazing MPL here, and donate to the American Red Cross in his honor because he was a self-professed ‘avid bleeder’ that nurses across New England declared as having ‘good veins.’ He rocked and rocks and we love him. Pour one out for the best dad ever, go Bruins. More about Mike: https://bostonhockeynow.com/2024/07/21/colageo-boston-bruins-reporter-mike-loftus-a-pros-pro/ Donate to Red Cross: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also gonna have some fun,

thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions Thank you. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free,

subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer, this season on the new podcast, Rip Current. Hear episodes of Rip Current early and completely ad-free and receive exclusive bonus content by subscribing to iHeartTrue Crime Plus, only on Apple Podcasts. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked, if movies have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hi everybody, this is Jamie. Welcome to the Bechdelcast. Just a quick liner note before this week's re-airing of an episode we recorded and released last year around my birthday about

the feminist masterpiece Slapshot. The guest is my dad, Mike Loftus, and we're re-releasing it this week because my dad passed away this week. I really hope you enjoy this episode. It was really, really special to me that we got to record it last year, you know, unbeknownst to you, the listener. At the time, I mean, my dad was battling with lung cancer for three years before he passed. And the reason that we were together last summer was because he was going through chemo and, you know, a very stressful time. And I was hoping to both manufacture a distraction for us. And selfishly, I just wanted to share what an awesome, fun person my dad is.

And especially with one of the topics that he's most passionate about, which is hockey. You'll hear him talk about it in the episode. He was a local hockey reporter on the Bruins beat for the better part of 40 years. I'm so proud of him and all of his work. I mean, everything that I've done is because he's made me believe I can do it and whatever, you know, you can, none of your business. All right, I'm going to save that for the week. The point is, I'm really sad. And I am so grateful, although I don't think I can really listen to it right now, you should, to have this kind of document of who my dad was and what he's like, and most importantly, kind of how willing he was to do one of Jamie's little projects, just an endlessly supportive person that he came on our

Radical Feminist podcast to talk about a hockey movie that we did not like very much, but just really special. I'll link in the description to a little more about my dad. And if you're interested, we are, as his family, accepting donations to the American Red Cross because my dad was weirdly obsessed with donating blood. And all the nurses were like, Michael has great veins. And you're like, okay, whatever. Anyways, if you're interested in donating to the Red Cross, that was something he was very passionate about. And yeah, recording this in a hotel room. And I also just quickly wanted to shout out my amazing common law spouse and dear friend and co-worker Caitlin Durante, who has been just so endlessly supportive and patient with me and with my family as we've been

navigating this pretty quietly for the last three years. There's been so many different times where I've had to record from a weird place. Fun fact, the birdcage episode for me, I was in a hospital bathroom the whole time. But Caitlin has just been unbelievably patient and supportive and I just love them so much and I know you do too because you're listening to this show but a special shout out to Caitlin for just being themselves and always being a place of respite and patience and yeah I love this show. And so did my family. So yeah, rest in power, Michael Patrick Loftus, 1959 to 2024. Not long enough, but we have this episode. We have an hour with him.

So enjoy it. The Bechdel cast. Happy birthday, Jamie. Thank you so much. Boom, slam, punch. Slap. Insult. Shot. Divorce.

Oh, jeez. So many themes. Homophobia. So many themes. Pittsburgh. Mm-hmm. I was really excited that this movie took place. I was like, where is Caitlin going to connect with this movie?

There's got to be somewhere. And I was like, Pennsylvania. It's the Pennsylvania connection. We did it. So, okay, welcome to the Bechdelcast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show where we analyze movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate much larger much grander conversations it's true

and the Bechdel test of course is a media metric created by Alison Bechdel as a joke as a goof back in the 80s in her comic Dykes to Watch Out For. It started as just a one-off joke, but it's since become a way to talk about how and if women are represented in movies and people of marginalized genders in general. A lot of versions of the test, the version of the test that we observe to start our conversation is

the test requires that there be two characters with names of a marginalized gender talking about something other than men for two lines of dialogue or more or more preferably more often but not it doesn't happen that way usually but there's there's so much to talk about it's not the be all and end all of any movie. And today it's exciting. It comes with twice a year, a birthday episode where Caitlin and I really get to go absolutely hog wild on on our on our choice of movie, on our choice of guest. Oh, it's a fun time. And this has been an episode that has been, it's not an episode that's ever been,

it's been requested by one person. And it's no coincidence that that person is also our guest. It's also the guest, yeah. But I would say it's been, well, how long have you been asking me about this? It's been a couple of years. Well, how long have you had the show? Just kidding. Seven years.

No, it hasn't been seven years i would say at least four years well we've talked about this i mean in your other podcast life when you did the kathy podcast you know it was a it was a thought that i had that you know there was this comic it wasn't for everybody um but the more i thought about it it kind of, it was unique for its time. You know, it was like there really weren't, in the comic strips, you know, there are interesting to me, you know, representations of women and their stories. And that's what your cast is all about, you and Caitlin. So I thought, well, you know, throw it out there and see what they think. And here we are. And sure enough, we're doing it. We're covering Slapshot. And the guest you just heard, Caitlin usually introduces the guests, but they have generously offered me the opportunity. It's your time to shine, Jamie.

Our guest today is a former hockey writer, current hockey fan, has been covering hockey since the 80s, been playing hockey since the 70s when this movie comes out. He's also a proud father to two wonderful children, lifelong Brockton residents, a Brockton legend. It's Mike Loftus. Welcome to the cast, Dad. Welcome. Jamie, good to see you, and good to see you too, Caitlin. Thank you.

For listeners, I'm currently in Brockton at my dad's house, and he's downstairs with my equipment. I'm upstairs with my phone. We have a very professional setup. It's like we're not even – but he did drive me to Dunkin' Donuts right before the episode so that I'll be you know on you gotta have your birthday dunks yeah it's true it's yeah it's I I'm feeling the birthday love I'm feeling

thrilled about the birthday so yeah the my memory of I don't remember when you first brought this movie up to me for the Bechdel cast but you every time you're like I think it would just be like if I happened to be talking about work you'd be like you know Slapshot is written by a woman that was just kind of the pitch and uh it stuck with me and you pitched it to me Jamie multiple times as well and I was like yeah and years later here we are which to be fair it's not a personal attack that's how most of our episodes end up happening we we think it over for a good two years and then eventually we cover it i feel like that has become kind of our habit it's true anyways, we're covering Slapshot. It is a 1977 film. It's directed by George Roy Hill. It is written by Nancy Dowd. It stars Paul Newman. Hubba hubba.

Caitlin is, oh, I learned this is wearing, Caitlin's horny for Paul Newman. I mean, he's very handsome. Oh my gosh. That's kind of the only thing I'm going to be able to contribute to this episode. Okay. My thirst for Paul Newman. Yeah. Unbelievable. Focused on men. My dad and I having discourse.

I'm just going to be like, Paul Newman? Oh, wooga. I don't like his character, but I very much enjoy looking at his face. Well, I guess let's get into it. I guess, Dad, well, actually, let's get ours out of the way. Caitlin, what's your history with the movie Slapshot? I only know about this movie because of the various times, Jamie, you've said, my dad wants to come on the podcast and cover Slapshot. And that is the reason I know this movie exists. Jamie, what's yours?

I know this movie exists because my dad has told me about it. But I also have, we've had Hanson Brother glasses at the house for, I remember where we have like, I think they're on the table next to you, dad. But they're like the Hanson brother, like taped glasses. It is like that's the only part of this movie that I really knew about. I had not watched it until the other day to prepare for this episode because, you know, I criminally have never been very into hockey. And so it was not a movie that really appealed to me. But I knew the Hanson brothers because they are so ingratiated into hockey iconography that we have like glasses that were given out at a game with the tape in the middle. And the Hanson brothers specifically are very iconic in hockey culture. I think this movie is, too, but like more.

I think the Hanson brothers are kind of the most enduring. Is that right? Would you say yeah yeah oh absolutely i mean it's uh okay you know you brought us some other hockey movies last night there aren't a lot of them yeah you know there are a lot of baseball and football and basketball movies hockey's i think hockey fans of a certain age say it's it's slap shot and then you know maybe another generation would be the mighty ducks and you know i think we would say more so the mighty ducks and then current current generation i don't know if they have a hockey movie oh i could yeah tell you of a hockey movie um but um is it good it's goon yes oh i i have heard of this one sean will William Scott is in it, if I'm not mistaken.

I don't know actors that well, but I actually know the gentleman that that film was based on. Okay. It's a true story about a guy. And the movie does not really tell the story of the actual person. Classic movie. That was okay. He knew that was going to happen and he was all right with it. I hope they paid him well for the book rights.

That might have happened. But yeah, Slapshot has not been a huge part of my life, but hockey certainly has. Grew up around hockey culture, hockey ideas, hockey labor. Yeah, I have, I like hockey, I think, as much as someone who doesn't follow it can.

I mean, you're Mrs. Zamboni. I have a Zamboni tattoo. And I didn't notice until the end of the first movie, the movie Slapshot, zero Zambonis. Zamboni visibility at an all-time low. My favorite ice sports movie, as you know, is I, Tonya. I love I, Tonya. Not a single Zamboni in that one either. What the hell?

I know. It's pretty fucked up. It's interesting to me that when I sat down to watch it again the other night and watch it in a different way, I didn't realize it's a two-hour movie. Yes, it sure is. It feels pretty long. It feels pretty long. So, you know, there was plenty of time in there for, you know, Zamboni tomfoolery, and yet— Dueling Zambonis?

Well, even just a— Spitballing? I mean, I don't know if this is the part where we even bring in little things about the the film but you know little things little things that the you know the team does to really really continue to whip people in a frenzy right like you know parking an ambulance outside of a game you know before it starts you couldn't have had somebody dress up crazy and just like you know drive the zamboni naked person driving a zamboni well it's a perfect yeah it's a perfect raunchy comedy idea okay never mind but you know an oversight i agree jame good point yeah yeah i felt strongly about that i feel like zambonis are rarely included to the point

where i wonder if the company simply objects to it because it just seems like such an easy win uh but they're a very kind of litigious italian family the zamboni family so i've heard when i've tried to contact them so i i like hockey i'd never seen slapshot all the way through and i watched it twice to prepare once with my dad once without and i have uh i mean it's so weird because I feel like the reason that I didn't like this movie as much as I was hoping to just has mostly to do with the fact that I historically don't love like super raunchy comedies like they just have never really appealed to me. But the more that I learned about the production of this movie, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. Certainly a lot of it doesn't age well we were getting dinner with my aunts last night and my auntie kate my dad's sister we've all been you know hockey pilled over the years and she's like oh yeah i've seen slap shot

it's kind of hard to watch now because it's long and a lot of it ages really badly and i was like all right so we're all on the same page here. But it is interesting. We don't cover a lot of movies from the 70s. And I think for a movie that a lot of it ages not well, there were more women in the story than I was expecting. I think more women than your average sports movie in general. I would agree. So lots to talk about. Yeah. Dad, what's your history with the movie Slapshot? Do you remember when you first saw it? Well, it actually came out the year I graduated high school. Nice.

1977, which is when I was wrapping up my super average career as a player. Okay, give us the rundown. What position did you play generally? I was a defense a defenseman one goal career statistics one goal one assist multiple penalty minutes um knee injuries yes one knee surgery one broken nose um went from there to i coached youth hockey with a buddy of mine for a couple years that. That was fun. Nice. When I was in college, I started officiating games as a way to make a few bucks.

And then that all dried up and I went into the, you know, there was no future in any of that for me. But I still just kind of couldn't quit the game. And love newspapers, love the sports section, sports guy. So in the, in the, there I am in like the, you know, kind of the teeth of the late seventies or when there's a lot of people going into journalism because of like all the president's men and, you know, everybody wants to be a journalist. Interesting. Movies are so influential. Is that, did it really feel like there was an uptick after All the President's Men? That makes sense to me.

Oh, yeah, definitely. I just wouldn't have connected that. Because a person like me who would show up and say, yeah, I want to be a sports writer, was like, what? That doesn't count. What's wrong with you? Be serious. Yeah, so that's kind of where it comes from. And the interesting little side story is the reason that I even played in the first place was that when she

was young, before she got married, my mom was a huge hockey fan. She loved the Bruins. I think she really liked the fights a lot. But, you know, she got married, she had three kids in four years. And at around that time, the Bruins in Boston, who had been terrible for a while, all of a sudden, they got very good. They had a great team and a lot of personality, a lot of fun. And she couldn't contain herself. She just, she signed me up even though I told her I didn't want to play. So, and you know, by the end of my first season playing, it was kind of all I wanted to do. Nice. So there's my, does that dot now? I don't think my mom watched Sl shot with me um but but you know

myself obviously and my my hockey friends i mean you know certain aspects of that movie just from having played on a team and everything like that just kind of you know cracked us up and um and then uh just just for listener context how long did you work in sports journalism covering hockey? Specifically covering hockey, I would say I started like in 1989. Halfway through that season, I became like the full-time, you know, Bruins beat writer at my paper. And I held that job through the 2019-20 season the last the bubble season the pandemic season so it was a good it was like 30 something years and I and also you know as my newspaper changed the industry changed and I had to you know I always said the Bruins but I found

lots and lots of of other hockey stories to do. Here in New England and the Boston area, there's lots of college stories, lots of stories about minor league players, draft picks. We had coaches. And one of the more interesting things was over my time was the growth of like the women's hockey game which i'm not even sure it really existed when i started you know i just realized i know nothing about it nor nor did i even realize there was a women's hockey league it's cool i mean dad dad you know obviously you know a million times more about it than me but when i went to toronto a couple months ago to do a show with your rock about i went to the hockey hall of fame and

it's like this big cool sprawling museum that has exhibits on women's hockey and on non-white hockey leagues and just like all all this um cool i don't know you know it is definitely a predominantly uh white male sport as our most north american sports but women's women's hockey leagues are really really interesting and i feel like there is i'm kind of surprised that there isn't a movie about maybe i mean listeners feel free to let us know if there is one and we just don't know about it but i don't think i've ever seen a like movie or show explicitly about women's hockey which feels weird i feel like there's movies about at least one movie about women's sports in most major sports yeah i mean but it was i mean it's it's around here and i guess you know in other places where hockey's a thing um you know the youth and high school and and level, you know, women's hockey is a thing.

You know, almost everybody has a team now in college. And the interesting thing to me was it has struggled to really get off the ground and stay established. But I will say for like the last five or six years has been a women's professional hockey league, you know, where women, you know, it's professional. They got paid to play. As the 2019-2020 season was winding down before everything shut down because of COVID, I always, I think about how interesting is that the last athlete that I interviewed face-to-face one-on-one was a women's professional hockey player which I thought was you know I didn't know it was going to be the last one I thought I would be going to work the next day but right or you would have talked to a man no I was there specifically to do this okay so all right you're killing it. Everything's going great. No, that's really, I am obviously a fan of my dad,

but I do think it's cool that you've covered so many local stories that are not ordinarily covered, especially with, I mean, like, I mean, Caitlin, what you just said is kind of proof of that. It's just like women's hockey is absolutely a thing, but it's not covered in any sort of broad way. Right. Like I've never seen a women's hockey game on TV. Not that I'm like actively seeking out sports games. You would more likely find it during like the Olympics. It's a significant thing.

Yes. And an issue is that the United States is great at it. Canada is great at it. But there's, you know, they need more international competition. It is, you know, it's not like there's generations of Swedish, Norwegian, you know, European players. I was going to say like Sweden, what are you doing? Hello. Yeah, I know.

Right. But I mean, it'll come. It will come. It will when I write my awesome women's hockey movie. So let's take a quick break and then we will come back for the recap. First period's over, you could say. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric.

Well, the election is in the homestretch, and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well.

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plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeartTrue Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life.

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And we're back. And now it's the second period. How many? Are there three periods? Okay. There's three. So this kind of works perfect. Wow. Yeah.

So the thing that I thought was halftime, it's probably not actually halftime. There's like two breaks in the middle. Yeah. There's not really any like manner of halftime show for hockey. There's like, well, to gas my- The my zambonis the zambonis are kind of how you know like yeah they come out twice and they resurface the ice because that's their kind of one purpose and and sometimes uh you know kids and also local celebs will come out on the zamboni and sometimes it's me at the staple center in january 2020 it was me one time

i think we should i think we should definitely post a picture of it to our instagram actually absolutely i think it's pretty important that we do but there's well there's also i feel like there's because there's no cheerleading element to hockey because it's on ice but they they have like what do they call like it's a group of it's it's now a gender inclusive group but it's like a they kind of assist the zambonis it's not really as festive as cheerleading or dancing it's really just like excited sweeping yeah and there are there are some teams that will employ people to you know stand in the stairways and everything and cheer okay i want that job it seems like a fun job i wonder if they're i feel like traditionally those jobs are

really low paid i wonder what the deal is in hockey but i was like you know i would sweep i would sweep in shorts why not yeah let's do it anyways let's what happens in the movie slap shot caitlin let us i would be delighted to tell you okay we meet a minor league right there you go minor league hockey team called the chiefs from the fictional town of charlestown pennsylvania not to be confused with Charlestown, Massachusetts, which is where the movie The Town famously takes place. Oh, that is kind of the famous town. Wow. Okay, so the most seasoned player and also the coach.

I did not know that the coach of a hockey team was also a player. Fascinating to me. Can that happen in minor leagues? Is that a thing? Yeah, there's been player coaches. The lower you go, you never know what you're going to see. So the coach slash a player is Reggie Dunlop, played by Paul Newman, hubba hubba. And then we meet some other players like Ned Braden. There's a goalie named Denis, who is French, and everyone makes fun of him for English not being his first language. I really like his opening monologue that ends with him just poetically describing the penalty box. And then he's like, and then you get free.

I was like, whoa. You feel shame and then you get free. And you're like, whoa. Denny. We also meet Joe McGrath, who is the team's manager? Because he's not the coach. So he's the manager. Is that right, Mike?

Yeah, general manager is what you'd call him. Got it. He has the team do fashion shows to promote the games because people aren't coming out as much to the games anymore because the Chiefs kind of suck and they've been losing a lot. Also, a local mill is going to be closing soon in the town, and it's going to potentially mean that Charlestown will sort of dry up and then the team might have to fold. So that's looming over everybody. We also meet the Hanson brothers. They have just been signed over to the chiefs.

They're characterized as being a bunch of dipshits who bring their toys with them even though they're adults they're yeah they're young adult i don't know i was like it didn't shock me that uh like what they're like 18 20 and 21 something like that and then you're just like yeah I guess they would bring their race cars. I was about to say they're not hurting anybody, but that's actually kind of their whole thing. They are super violent on the ice. And then they would later go on to form a boy band and sing Mbop. I know.

It's so confusing. Like I, God, that is, that's a good generation gap. It was like, who are the Hanson brothers to you right because i'm i'm going umbop every time i didn't know that boomers had their own handsome brothers it's true okay so we also meet a few of the players wives they're his wives such as brayden's wife lily she hates this town she seems to just kind of generally hate her life and possibly her husband uh we also meet francine who is reggie's ex-wife who he is trying to win back to no avail my hero my favorite character francine francine rocks so the team they wonder who owns the team because they don't know and reggie is like i don't know it's just a corporation and then their general manager that guy joe reveals that this is the chief's last season

and the players are worried that they won't be signed to another team. Some of them feel like they're getting too old to be a valuable asset to another team. Reggie thinks that they might get sold and get transferred to a new city. He's thinking somewhere in Florida. Reggie is such a mess i it is no secret to anyone on this call that i don't care for the character of reggie not a fan of his i think it's so like we'll talk about him more obviously later in the episode but i really like especially the second time when i was watching it it was because he's such a piece of shit to everyone.

And it's, it's really interesting to me that like his only redeeming moments happen privately. Like he's never publicly nice to anybody privately. He will, he will say nice things about people behind their back, never to their face. And it just like,

it made me, I don't know. It was, it was an interesting character. I mean, it's tricky because it just like it made me i don't know it was an interesting character i mean it's tricky because it's like i don't think the movie is fully i don't know i mean i i think he's like he's a piece of shit and also kind of tragic to me in a way because he just seems like someone who needs a friend so badly but like can't stop getting in his own way enough to ever like have a friend like there's so many characters in this movie that he almost forges a friendship with but then turns on them

or is a piece of shit to them or like feels insecure for a second and says something cruel to them and you're just like this person is so like it's it's he's a mess he's an asshole but it's also like it's sad like it's like this guy just needs to get out of his own way and make a make a friend but but he but he can't do it and it's um it's very frustrating to watch him sabotage himself over and over Yeah. So he's insecure about the future of the team. And he goes to this sports writer, Dickie Dunn, aka basically Mike Loftus. Yeah, Dad, did you feel represented by Dickie Dunn? I do like that he's often well, just trying to catch the spirit of the thing, you know. He says this a lot. Yes. I mean, you know, whatever. Reggie Dunlop plays him, you know. He says this a lot, yes. Yes. I mean, you know, whatever.

Reggie Dunlop plays him, you know, obviously. You know, kind of plants this story about, oh, I hear we're getting sold when, you know, that never was going to happen. Right. So Dickie's failure to, like, maybe follow up on that. He's not doing very good journalism. Yes.

Because he's doing no research. But, you know, he's probably selling some papers and you know, he just, it's funny how he just sort of fell right into Reg's trap there.

Well, he is charming. He is like charismatic, so people are like, he is hot, so you should probably believe him. probably believe so hot. So everyone listens to him. And that's a great line to where they're, you know, Paul, you know, Reg is reading the story. Hey, Dickie Dunn wrote it. You know, it's true. sports writers as bad parents. His daughter ran out and her brother was bullying her and he's like, alright, resolve it among yourselves. Talking to Paul Newman. I'm doing business right now. I'm Mr. Business.

Bad representation. I think there might have been a drink or two there too. Oh yeah, yeah. He said go away kids and then he starts drinking again. There's a lot of drinking in this movie. So much drinking. Yeah, yeah dad you'll have to uh explain the 70s um so dickie dunn is like that's ridiculous no one's gonna buy a fifth place team and reggie is like well that's about to change meanwhile Reggie is having an affair with an opponent's wife, his wife, Suzanne.

And she tells Reggie that she's been sleeping with other women recently, which Reggie uses when he plays his opponent the following week. This guy named Hanrahan hanrahan yep that will we'll talk about that that'll be a whole thing because that's uh it's like that's something that this movie is so constantly infuriating mostly because of reg yeah where you're like oh wow i would guess that that wouldn't be something that would be like commonly discussed in a popular movie in the 70s. And then in the next scene, you're like, well, what was the point? Like, if you're just going to do that, what was the point? Exactly. Yeah. So Hanrahan is the goalie for the other team.

And Reggie is taunting him and saying, you know, your wife is a lesbian, but he's using a lot of slurs. And it makes Hanrahan so mad and distracted that he gets scored on a bunch and the chiefs win. Also partly because they get very violent and start beating the shit out of the other team, which is sort of like becoming their new calling card. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Meanwhile, we have a scene with Lily. She's still having a really hard time. It seems like Brayden is cheating on her.

And then Reggie tries to comfort her, but in a very sleazy way where he's like, come over. I'll give you a foot rub. He's so frustrating. I'm just like she she uh that's whatever i mean i i guess the choice is consistent with reggie's character but i'm just like ah these two characters they both need a friend why can't they be friends to each other but it's because reggie can't because he's a creep yeah because he can't not be a creep but he's not even the most creepy guy on the team because that's a guy named Morris. That's, oh, he's a disaster.

Yeah. Anyway, so the team sees this story in the paper that Dickie Dunn had printed about how the Chiefs are going to get bought and transferred to Florida, which they're very excited about. And so with the team morale higher than ever, the Chiefs start winning a bunch. Although, again, they're playing way rougher than normal. There's lots of punching and bloody faces and stuff. Although Braden is opposed to playing dirty. He thinks it's cheap and not the right way to win. Which feels sort of like built into,'s like i went to college i'm not none of this nonsense i went to college yeah i'm still a

piece of shit who's cheating on my wife but i have morals but i went to college um but reggie is very pro all of this hockey violence and he starts putting the hansen brothers in the game whose entire strategy is just to punch the shit out of their opponents i kind of love the hands like it's kind of hard not to love the hansen brothers they're so goofy they're extremely goofy wait my my my dad's got a real sleigh of a context corner for them. But I love the Hanson brothers. They're fun. Yeah, they're awesome.

Anyway, so the team continues to speculate who the owner is. Meanwhile, this thing is happening where Reggie just like keeps lying about the team getting bought and sold to keep the morale up. And also maybe he's just like deluding himself because he knows that he's about to reach a point where he's probably going to have to retire. And he's so insecure and he can't deal with it. It's so I read this incredible essay about how Reggie is a metaphor for the men of Pittsburgh in the 70s. And I'm just like, I'm excited to talk about it later okay um okay so then reggie sees francine with another guy and he's kind of like following her around and calling different places that he knows that she frequents to try to like see who she's been there with very stalker behavior yeah he's doing

i mean he does the same thing to lily he like jumps in her car at one point like he's just he has no no issue really inserting being around yeah yeah and he bumps into her at some point and francine tells reggie that she's moving to long island which i'm like yes please get away from him then there's an upcoming game against syracuse so reggie goes on the radio for an interview and he says that he's putting a bounty on i don't know if it's that team's coach or just kind of like one of their star players this guy tim mccracken and he's like i'm paying a hundred dollars of my own money you're like for someone to kill him such a low bounty it's it's kind of fun right um and then there's this player who has given himself the nickname killer and he's like i'll do it i'll kill tim mccracken. Anyway, Lily shows up at Reggie's place with her huge St. Bernard dog. She seems to have left Brayden and she has a new lease on life. He doesn't know it yet.

He doesn't know it yet. Let's see. Then Reggie takes Lily to Francine's hair salon and she gets a bit of a makeover. I have some, I have complicated thoughts about that scene, because I feel like that scene's heart is in the right place, but it's kind of broadly done. But I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then Reggie finally figures out who the owner of the Chiefs is, and he goes to see him. Just kidding. It's a woman. What? Anita McCambridge. And he wants to know how the sale of the team is going.

But she tells him that she plans to fold the team and take a tax loss rather than sell it because she won't make enough of a profit if she sells the team. It's like every single decision like every streamer is making right now they're like no actually we're deleting your entire life and career because it suits me today fuck you yikes and so this news infuriates reggie and he brutally insults her son and then storms out classic reggie's like well i'm feeling a little insecure and angry let me insult someone who's not here in the cruelest way i can possibly think of truly it's kind of his whole thing then reggie comes clean to his team he

admits that there's no deal for them to be bought and moved to Florida, that Ned was right all along, they shouldn't be resorting to all of this violence as a way to win games. And this is Reggie's last game, and he's going to play it straight and try to win that championship honestly and legitimately. But this is when they're playing Syracuse and that team is ready for a bloodbath so the game starts and the Syracuse team are fighting but the Chiefs aren't fighting back and they're losing and then it's not halftime it's either after the first or second period. But they're like in the locker room and their general manager, Joe, is like, hey, there's a bunch of NHL scouts in the crowd.

So you have to put on a good show for them. And Reggie's like, okay, forget everything I said. We're going to play dirty. And then we just like cut to everyone punching each other. Francine and Lily show up to the game. And Brayden sees his wife. And he's like, wow, this part is where this this is where like the whole Lily story falls apart for me where I'm like, what happened here? So confused about what happens with Lily's character yeah not I don't know sure and I also don't know exactly what prompts this but Brayden goes out on the ice while everyone well everyone's just punching each other and not

playing hockey even a little bit and Brayden starts doing a strip tease and everyone in the crowd and all the players are like teehee wow and for some reason this solves all of the problems in his marriage you're just like it's very cinematic but you're just like it doesn't make sense but it's a very movie behavior yeah and he does the strip tease and it somehow wins the game i don't know if the other team forfeits i don't know what happens here i could i could tell you please please yeah so as as ned is doing his strip tease one of the player one of the it might be tim mccracken is furious and he's you know, during the middle of this bloodbath, he starts to yell at the official, like, that's disgusting.

Make him stop. And the official's like, what do you mean it's disgusting? Look at this. And they end up with an argument. And McCracken, or the, you know, the opponent, hits the official. Which is, no matter how low the miners or whatever you know you can't hit an official and he he hit him and the official says that's it the game's over you forfeit you know got it okay okay nice okay it reminds me of an airbud when they're like there's nothing in the rule book

that says a dog can't play basketball it's like there's nothing in the rule book that says a dog can't play basketball. It's like there's nothing in the rule book that says a player can't come out and strip to win the game. Right. You can maybe get a penalty for it. Or could you? Play was stopped at the time. Right, that's true. He's basically just doing,

it's like that could have been the ice sweepers. It could have been anything. And he happened to do that i don't yeah i'm so the way that this movie it's so bizarre we were talking about it when we were watching it a couple nights ago where it's like this movie in the last half of it like i'd be on board and then it would lose me for 10 minutes i'd be back for a couple minutes and then it would lose me for 10 minutes and then i kind of liked the ending and it was like i didn't see i don't like well whatever we're at the end basically yeah but like it lost me during this whole game

because you're like why does ned stripping on ice solve the issue of infidelity and them hating it each other and then it seems like well whatever like i'm i didn't dislike the scene between lily and francine even though it was like whatever channeled into the idea into a makeover i think you can make the argument that it was like she was getting a makeover to feel better about herself it didn't seem like it was overtly for her husband or for anyone except for herself because she had already left him by that point yeah it seemed like she was she was doing it to feel more confident about herself i don't have an issue with that but it just seems like it's like implied that something happens

between lily and francine off screen that leads because i'm like i don't even know why they show up at that hockey game it's confusing to me because it seems like lily or francine's like getting lily gassed up to like get out into the world and start her life like whether that's dating or moving or whatever it is kind of unclear but then it's like the next time we see them they're at the hockey game you're like when did you guys decide to go to the hockey game why it seems like the opposite of what lily was trying to do right they should have gone out to Right. They should have gone out to dinner. They should have gone out to a singles bar.

The Aces. And then they could have started a book club together. I don't know. Anyway, so we cut to a parade. The team, I think, has disbanded, but the players, seems like they're getting contracts to go play on other

teams reggie is going to go play in minneapolis he tries to get francine to come with him but she's like um pass but lily and brayden do get back together in an infuriating moment i know it's so everyone i've never been so split on different characters endings where it's like i'm i'm thrilled for francine and i'm completely confused by lily yeah but anyway but everyone's celebrating at the parade and that's how the movie ends so let's take another break second period is over is there a big is there a big buzzer in hockey to like signify the end of a period? I think it's a siren, you know? Oh, okay.

So awooga. We'll be right back. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki,

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One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that?

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They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from blumhouse television iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts we're back and it's time we're back for the third period and the third period can go on for a while there's no time limit if things are tight you know sometimes sometimes it just it keeps going sometimes we go into overtime overtime yes on the bechdel cast yes oh oh that's okay i wonder that's that's when we do the our scoring that's oh yeah that's like the penalty shootout kind of thing. Yeah. So, Dad, before we get into the full analysis, I'm curious. Do you feel that the sport of hockey is like, does this feel authentic?

Because you, I mean, like we're reporting like on the road with teams and reporting from locker rooms for decades. Does this movie feel close for the era does it feel overblown and movie-fied like how does it square with your experience in this uh arena you know hey um you know it's it's a good question i mean i think you know when i watch that movie everything in it from the hockey standpoint is just an exaggeration, you know? It's like, you know, yes, there is locker room talk, but to some of the extent that these guys, you know, no, I don't, I never heard. The violence in games, you know, yes, it's a very, very physical game. And I would say back in that era that was more of a

factor that was more of a strategy than it is now and and also too the NHL it's like any major sport people follow them there's like the top level and then there are different tiers in hockey the lower that you go you know you're probably not going to make it. You might move up another level or two. So the crazier things, I guess, would tend to happen in the lower minors, smaller towns, smaller franchises, things like that. And that's kind of where the movie came from. Now, Nancy Dowd's brother, Ned. Nancy Dowd is the writer of the movie.

Yes, I'm sorry. Yeah. So her brother played college hockey in Maine, and then he played two years of low minor professional hockey league. And he would, you know, he would tell his sister stories about the, you know, the things that happened and thus the movie. So a lot of it, there's a lot of things that are based on things that actually did happen. And I think that, you know, for film purposes and everything, you know, it's amplified and exaggerated.

That's something, I mean, I guess that's like a place that I would be down to start is just talking a little bit about the behind the scenes process of this movie because i didn't i know that i mean the one fact i knew about this movie other than it's where the hansen brothers glasses comes from is what my dad told me 5 000 times which is that a woman wrote the movie it was the fact that i knew but i didn't know i i actually really liked i don't know it's like it, oh, I kind of do stuff like that sometimes. Nancy Dowd, yeah, she heard that her brother was involved in this. What was the name of the team that the Chiefs are based on? The Johnstown Jets in Pennsylvania.

So that was a team her brother was on. He called basically with the premise to slap shot that this you know team was not going to be around for much longer and so she followed them around for a month and she like shadowed them and did basically like gonzo style following this minor league team around and so a lot of what she saw went directly into the movie and the script which i think you can argue works for and against it because it's like if she's presenting this the late 70s that authentically a lot of it doesn't age well because it was you know almost 50 years ago yeah but it does seem like that was sort of

her goal in writing it and what she was trying to present and so i went back to the way that this movie was originally covered because it was like a hit it was a box office success people liked it paul moorman was in it and it was also like i thought it was interesting that it was drawn attention to when the movie came out that these were like quote i'm just trying to think if there's like a contemporary example of this where they were like quote unquote like respectable filmmakers making this raunchy comedy um because the director of this movie george roy hill like he directed butch cassidy he'd done all of these like you know really sensitive thoughtful prestige movies and then later in his career makes this super super raunchy comedy and then you have nancy dowd who is from framingham massachusetts representing massachusetts but grew up you know like a pretty like upper

crusty massachusetts life she went to smith college like she was like a no one and this was like her first success she went on after after this, two years after this, she won an Oscar for a movie called Coming Home about, did you see that, Dad? I did. Did you like it? It was a little challenging to believe. It was very serious.

It was kind of like a Vietnam War movie. Right. And it's, you know, John Voight, so. Well, that works against it yeah it's no national treasure but no i mean it's speaking of not aging well but yeah because john voight is truly evil um yeah but but it felt like these prestigey stars serious writers and and directors making this really raunchy goofy comedy but it was also like my dad the news talked a lot about how like a woman wrote the movie in a different context that i'm not criticizing

but i just like most of the coverage uh of nancy dowd at this time was like it's the raunchiest comedy of the year and a woman wrote it and like which i think that we still see stuff like that and it's still like the majority of raunchy comedies that come out are not written by i don't think that there's really parody it i mean there's not parody in film in general but i think especially in this, it still feels super male driven. I feel like Joyride is the only exception I can think of this year. But I read some of the coverage because I was like, well, how did Nancy Dowd kind of field this? And I thought she was cool.

I thought she was really funny and really cool. She says this in a New York Times article from 1977. This is how it's set up. It's set up obscenity, hockey, a woman, Miss Dowd has been meeting so many people lately who can't believe that she actually wrote this screenplay that she is beginning to lose her patience. And she says, quote, the world has a weird view of women. People seem to believe that we have to write about divorce or suicide or children, so-called women's topics. But we've been around. Women aren't sequestered anymore. And kind of just goes on to talk about how it reminds me of like how you still see a lot of women writers being like, well, I wish this wasn't the story right shut up like watch the movie and like it or don't but this movie was even in its time considered to be pretty sexist i think paul newman called it honestly sexist which i think is an interesting way to come about it i think i think what he's

trying to say i don't know let me know if either of you feel differently is that it feels like it's more speaking to like how nancy dowd was not transcribing dialogue but like just sort of saying authentically how guys she was hanging out with were talking and not sanitizing what they were saying so it's like she was hanging out with sexist guys the movie is honestly sexist because she's not like you know sugar more appealing yeah yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I would say too, that, you know, when it came out, you know, when I was whatever, 18 years old, I don't recall knowing that a woman wrote it at the time. I mean, we just, you know, you should have been reading the New York times. Well, they couldn't shut up about it.

I was reading the Brockton enterprise and hoping to one day work for the Patriot Ledger but we were just excited because there was a movie about hockey and it was our thing really didn't take it that much farther I was surprised when I looked a little bit more into it later on just finding out little things about people who were in the

movie, you know, that, that got me to look, you know, behind this, not behind the scenes, but behind the story. And it was like, you know, the only thing was like, oh, a woman wrote it. I guess, you know, my, not reaction to that, but like the way I, I might come off that way is like, like if her brother wrote the movie, it'd be like, oh yeah, of course, you know, like all that dialogue, this and that. And it just, you know, it just wouldn't have seemed, you know, it's so raunchy.

Like, I'm not saying like anybody can't be raunchy, but it's like, you know, that one character, you know, Caitlin, you brought up, Mara is like, it's gross, you know, it's like, it's hideous, like his, you know, I character you know Caitlin you brought up Morris is like it's gross you know it's like it's hideous like his yeah um you know I was saying to Jamie it was not like I never heard some of those terms before but like so so rare you know and you know I mean I don't know I guess on a in an office you know on a team there's always that one person that, you know, takes it a little bit farther or just like is extreme. And as I was watching it the other night, it was like,

I didn't catch, you know, in my earlier viewings of it that a lot of his teammates are kind of grossed out by him too, which like well you know thank god for that yeah i mean i think it's well we'll get into this too i like i i don't know it's i think that it seems like her goal in writing the movie was like writing obviously like a movie that people would like that was funny but was also like authentic to what she'd experienced which i don't really have a problem with i think it's more like especially because this movie has been out for almost you know 50 years now like it's interesting watching like what parts of this movie are its legacy because i feel like the parts that i thought were interesting about the movie

are not parts of the movie that are famous and also it's like the writer has no control over what becomes known about their work or not but it just i don't know i just think it's there was more to this movie than i thought but like the the nuancy parts of it aren't what it's known for that plus like yeah she was observing the team and who knows like if she was like transcribing like stuff that they said and putting it into the script or if she was embellishing some of it. But it seems like for the most part, she's like, well, the way that Dickie Dunn just tries to capture the spirit of the thing. I'm guessing. Yeah, because she's trying to do that. Nancy Dowd was just trying to capture the

spirit of the thing and it seems like the spirit was a lot of like pretty loserish guys who are either creepy or stalkery or they don't treat women well etc that's just the vibe those were the vibes she was getting so that's what she put on the page. My concern is that a lot of it is presented uncritically and or just framed like Morris saying all of his gross comments about women's bodies and stuff like that is usually just framed as a joke. Like, ha ha, look at the,

look at the team creep. Isn't he funny? Aren't we laughing at him? Yeah. So, but again, it's like, you know,

it's the 70s a lot of horrible things were not presented critically it was just this is what's normal and and it's normal so that's fine yeah i i i don't know it's it's movies of this era are always uh i feel like tricky in in that way yeah the i sorry i have one more quote from her from this new york times piece the piece goes on she's generally frustrated that the movie was considered to have strong sexist overtones this was something that was talked about in original reviews of the movie but uh she was annoyed with that uh she said quote the only thing i thought twice about writing was making the team's rich uncaring owner a woman i worried about people

saying i had made a sexist statement but i've seen that woman's attitude so many times quote i never let my children see a hockey game unquote so it seems i mean whatever she felt she felt differently and i don't know it's like i i feel i i i respect what she's trying to do. And I also agree with what you're saying, Caitlin. It just depends on how your movie is received. I think if you're looking for nuance in this movie, you can find it. But because of the genre, you might not necessarily be looking for it. I don't know. And I think, too, the fact that the owner is a woman. As I was pitching this idea to Jamie, it's like, I don't think this will pass.

I think this is like the worst possible. But she's, you know, used the description rich, uncaring. It's also, she's a ruthless, bottom line business person. Right. And like any guy would have done that, you know? Yeah. I mean,

I thought the same, you know, but so I don't, I don't know that you saw a lot of that back then where the, I don't know, is it called girl boss? I don't want to step in anything here, you know?

Well, yeah, you've seen my, you've seen my show. I mean, I think it kind of, I think that it does fall into that thing i don't know i think it's interesting that that was what was on her

mind in 77 because i that was one of the characters that i didn't think really i didn't have an issue with i had an issue with how reg treated her versus like how she was portrayed because it was like at that point for me i don't know how you felt at this point in the movie caitlin but it was like you had seen different kinds of women throughout this movie that it's like i feel like sometimes if there's only one woman in the movie and she is like a ruthless cruel person then it's like well i have no idea how this writer feels about women this seems like how they're presenting all women but because it's like this one character who comes up late in the movie i feel like she represents more of a class thing than any sort of commentary on gender and i was i was fine with that like it's

same you know she and reg and the scene both suck in in very very different ways and yeah that that worked for me i thought it was interesting that that was the thing that stuck with her because i think the thing that stuck with me really was i agree like there there's not any pushback on how men talk about women in this movie i agree with you dad that like there there there were some that you know you would but you would have to kind of be looking for it of like someone being like, ugh. Because they do like the, I think that the character that is most clearly written in a way that the movie is conscious of being sexist is, I don't know. Do you know what the name of that character is? Like the one that is who only says sexist stuff.

Morris. Morris, yeah. Yeah. of sexist stuff um morris morris yeah yeah morris's whole thing is that he views women as objects and it's like that's the joke with this character yeah and you know and to go back to go back to the point that it's a two-hour movie if you cut morris out right it becomes a it could have been a shoot an easier movie to digest for sure yeah and mean, it doesn't really add anything, I don't think. You know, it's just, it's like a, you know, again, the scene with the owner and Paul Newman, you know, as I think about it now, that's like Reg Dunlop, you know, the shoes on the other foot now. Because, you know, not because she's a woman, but she's the owner and she's telling him like

yeah i could help you and your and your your players but you know but there's nothing in it there's no money in it for me and and when he says you know we're human beings you know that's maybe about as you know for all the other scenes where like he's sort of vulnerable and he wants you know francine back you know that was a it's a small scene but that's probably you know his most his most human vulnerable moment maybe i you know and it could have been a much more effective just scene in general or commentary or whatever it's trying to do as far as like yeah rich people conduct and them not caring about human lives and only caring about the bottom line but then the scene ends with him going on a

homophobic tirade about her young son and then it's just like well that undercuts everything that could have been interesting about that scene right caitlin as you said earlier the scene where you know he's with the opponent's wife you know i mean oh you know she she explains a very you know personal thing to him and he seems to be listening and have some you know respect and everything yeah but then you know right two seconds later and that sets his character everything he can use he will use against others you know yeah so that's that's something that i maybe i mean if it works for everybody i mean that maybe is a good opportunity to slip over to just reg as a character i wonder i'm trying to think i couldn't think of like a modern day analog for this character because i do think that there is value in presenting a character like this who is you know like i i struggle to call him like a

complicated guy uh but someone who responds to insecurity by being hateful like that is i think something that exists in the world it exists in a a lot of men, but a lot of people, but mostly men, if we're being honest, but you know, in general, these, these are people who exist in the world. I don't think it's off the table to present that, but presenting it as your movie star hero is a very difficult sell for me because then it's like I think that the element like Paul Newman I think gives a good performance in this movie but he's Paul Newman you know he's

like you're gonna love him because he's Paul Newman and he's charismatic and he's handsome and even when he's saying horrible things especially in the late 70s where people said horrible things more openly than they currently do like it's just it's even if there is something to be said about presenting a character like this i feel like the combination of positioning it as your main character and your hero and also like combining that with he doesn't really i mean i guess like he doesn't get what he wants in the way that we see in some movies where like someone fucking sucks the whole movie and then for some reason they get exactly what they want at the end it's it's a mixed bag for reg at the end

but i wouldn't say he like he doesn't get his uh really like he gets to continue to work in hockey like he gets part of it i think the main thing he loses is the relationship that he very obviously still wants right and deservedly so and that i think is one of the better done parts of the movie for sure but yeah i don't know i struggled with how his character was framed i don't know especially because he learns nothing. He shows no growth. And even at the end when it seems like, you know what? I don't want to win this way by, you know, pummeling the other team. I want to play hockey and win that way.

And then as soon as he's like, oh, there are scouts here. He kind of is like, oh, never mind. Yeah. It's like, okay, so you have absolutely no code of ethics. That's interesting. And again, I mean, I don't know if we're supposed to be where we're supposed to be in this discussion. But, you know, again, the more I thought about it, I remember reading a piece several years ago about the movie as, you know, kind of a, not a hockey movie, but like a sort of a snapshot of America kind of at the time, late 70s. And I, you know, I can't really remember what the economy was like, you know, but things,

you know, longtime businesses, you know, longtime industries were really taking, you know, a hit back then, like the steel industry. And one of the things that kind of struck me watching it, it's like with everybody depicted in there, even if they're not characters in the movie, but like the fans, right? They're all looking at losing their jobs because their jobs are going to disappear. And the players, will they get signed?

Will the team fold? They were believing it would get sold. To me, there's like this low level desperation, you know, to survive on the parts of everyone there, you know. And in the case of Paul Newman's, you know, Paul Newman being the oldest one, being not really that successful, you know, I mean, whether this is, you know, him all the time or not, you know, he's kind of the worst one. He's like, I will do anything. I'll do whatever it takes, you know, to be able to continue my career someplace else or here. And if it has to do with, you know, kind of manipulating my players or manipulating people who are involved, my players, you know, means to an end pretty much all the way through. You know, I, yeah, I, I, the closest I can get to rationalizing Reg's character, I read

an essay, an academic essay. I was on google.scholar.com. Of course. Yes. This was published in Athlon, A-E-T-H-L-O-N, Athlon, the Journal of Sport Literature, volume 37, issue one, from 2019, written by John Soares.

So take everything he says with a grain of salt. But I did really appreciate his retrospective view on this movie and i think it because it offered because he did a more class driven view of the men on this team which i do think is a valuable way of looking at this movie but he basically makes the argument that reg Reg's character like doesn't shy away from the fact that Reg is a despicable character. And I do I guess it's like we don't have 1977 goggles to put on. And I wonder how clearly that read at the time. argument that he makes that I think is interesting and kind of speaks to like the parts of this movie that did work for me was that you know I think the setting is very relevant here where they're

like encapsulated in this fictional steel town where jobs are falling left and right there's this huge sense of insecurity about the future and you see in these men on the team, a level of like, people acting desperately when their future is insecure. And I think Reg is a really extreme, kind of like monstrous version of that, where he is so desperate to preserve what he wants for his version of the future, that he will undercut almost anyone in his life even if he likes and respects them he is not above completely selling them out in order to preserve the future that he feels entitled to and john sores kind of makes the argument that this movie illustrates well i guess something that is historically true i didn didn't know this, but I was

delighted to learn it, that in times of economic insecurity and in recessions and depressions, women are like statistically more likely to move with the time and men are more likely to cling to how things were and be unwilling to change their situation. They're less likely to want to move. They're less likely to want to switch professions. They're less likely to want to change the way that their day-to-day life is versus women are far more likely to be, I guess, like just kind of more realistic about what's happening. Yeah, more adaptable. You know, there's a line in the movie and in the scene where, you know, Reg and, um, his opponent's wife are in bed and it, it closes with, I think he's telling

her, you know, the team's going to fold or the team, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. And she says to him, you know, just, just use your imagination. That's what I've been doing. So it's, you know, and I think he uses that line himself later on. Yeah. On somebody else. But, you know. But he's still, I mean, but I think that that's part of like what is frustrating about the men in this movie for me is like they, even at the end, and I think the movie is conscious of this, like Reg has not really changed. Because his last line is him lying about whether his wife

is leaving him or not because you know lily is like oh is she coming and he's like yeah and we know she's not and it's like this it's kind of like a i think viewed a certain way and this is not the way that this character is regarded in pop culture but i i liked looking at it that way of like this guy is kind of tragic and he can't accept that things are changing and that his life is changing and that is something that I think is like very relatable and everyone has experienced that to some degree and also it's like if you whatever because we as the audience know that he is just like really committed to having the upper hand in his life in a way that's impossible and i just thought it was interesting um but yeah i think that viewed from that sort of perspective the men in this movie are not flexible uh they are completely inflexible and

they refuse to accept a future that is uncomfortable to them and the women in this movie are not like that they will i mean i think that the well and we'll talk about really shortly because it's like her character is so frustrating because i feel like she was inconsistent with this but with the characters of suzanne who is um suzanne hamraham I'm assuming, and Francine, they are both women who are like, look, I was either uncomfortable, unsafe. And so I got the fuck out and moved on with my life. And that's like, that's what you have to do to survive. And I think it's especially effective with Francine because she knows that she's right to leave him i honestly was i thought that the movie would end with them getting back together and i was so thrilled that it didn't absolutely it feels like a good fake out yeah she turns she

turns her car around and joins the parade yeah i mean and that was you know again that was a thing that sort of struck me about the movie you know in lot of other movies, that's what would have happened. They would have gotten together at the end. Yeah, she would have been like, wow, you won the trophy at the championship game? Well, here's me, another trophy. Trophy number two,

baby. Well, you know, happy endings in movies, right? Hollywood does love a happy ending. But the last shot of this movie is her driving in the other direction. And I feel like that was my favorite sort of thread in the movie. I felt like because of the time, and I mean, this still happens in movies, that they would somehow end up reconciling. When she showed up at the game at the end, I'm like, well's curtains on francine she's gonna be fucked over but but re-watching it again knowing

that she leaves it's even kind of like cooler yeah she was my favorite character because she consistently like she has affection for her ex-husband but also like doesn't want to get back together and i think like in their interactions it was really interesting because paul newman's character is constantly trying to like manufacture a need that she would have for him where he's on he's constantly like well if you need money you can call me and she's like i don't but like you know she doesn't need him and he can't like he knows that at his core because he says it behind her back. He never says it to her face, but he says behind her back, like, oh yeah, since my wife broke up with me, she, her life has been way better.

Like he says that to Lily. So it's like, he knows it, but he can't really admit it. And it's just, it felt like an interesting, like complicated relationship dynamic that feels like something that happens in the real world. And I just like that specific subplot i think kind of worked for me especially because francine was like you know touched that he seemed to recognize that when she heard it from a third party but he's right and she wants to move on with her life and she does and i thought that that was cool yes but for some reason that same nuance and generosity is not extended to lily which i found to be so weird i'm like was that a studio note like two women can't

leave their husbands it can just be the one like what happened there because lily i think again is set up in an interesting way but then it kind of goes away by the end of the movie right it seems like she's being set up to that her arc will be like she's mustering up the courage to actually leave her husband which is something that she seems to want to do for a while. She's like, very vocal about how miserable she is in this town. She seems very miserable in the relationship. She's watching her husband flirting with other women. And she eventually, I don't know if there's some catalyst that gets her to finally leave him or if it just kind of happens but one day she shows up on also the fact that she goes to reggie i guess he's the

only person who has like extended any kind of olive branch or or anything i sort of found that to be an act of desperation because we've seen her fail to make friends and connections inside of this small world that she's been forced into kind of right because we see her hang out with other hockey wives for lack of a better right term right who to be fair and i think this is like a class thing where she and her husband ned because they're like from you know well-to-do families and they're both college educated she is positioned as like smarter hotter better than the other hockey wives which didn't feel fair right yeah and she's not able to connect with them so anyway she leaves Brayden for a while and goes to Reggie and she's like I'm moving in I guess and then he takes her he introduces her to Francine and what I would have liked to have happened was they become friends they have a lot of common

ground you know they're both which is like established in the one scene they have together it's like right like there's a lot to learn sure. Like they're in either like current or former relationships with hockey players who don't know how to treat women well at all. And the women are sick of it. And I thought it was gonna be a situation where Francine empowers Lily to like, you know, strike out on her own because there's it's like i well but it's that's what was so confusing because it felt like you know i you can i i don't know like the makeover thing didn't bother me at all really because it's also like we're seeing suzanne or no sorry we're seeing francine at her job so okay i think a lesser movie would have reg be like we gotta make this girl over and you know but know, but like Reg, it's right there. And Francine and like, whatever, it's a dated way of doing it. But I was like, okay. But then when, but then when they go to the hockey game, like, what happened? Because I really

liked that conversation where Lily is. And again, it's like in the context of like, what I mean, we're well into second wave feminism by the late 70s but leaving your husband in the late 70s is different than currently right and there are different dynamics to that and so i understand why like lily is nervous about it it's a nerve-wracking experience to leave your spouse no matter what year it's happening in right but i like i liked how francine like she said it's lousy at first you think you're dying what year it's happening in right but i like i liked how francine like she said it's lousy at first you think you're dying but then it's fabulous you become a new woman and you're like this is such an interesting dynamic to set up but then it just goes nowhere

it goes back nowhere yeah yeah and the interesting you know caitlin too i mean you like and jamie Like, and Jamie. Uh-huh. That's your name, right? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Like, Lily, you know, that whole character sort of confuses me because, you know, she makes very clear she doesn't like that life. They could go back to, you know, something easier with money. And she leaves her husband but stays in the life you know she stays in the town she goes to another hockey person you know so it's like i do wonder i mean but i wondered like if that was just like temporary and then she because it was like i mean i guess it took

francine we don't know how long she and reg have been separated or how long francine had to save or whatever it would take for her to start her restart her life somewhere else but it's i don't know it seems like the movie was setting us up for like oh francine could inspire or give lily the confidence to right do something similar yes coach i agree like i empower her coach her so that that part was a little bit hard not to justify it was like oh i didn't think that was going to be the result of this you know right because then it's like ned ned does not change at all i know that like symbolically him doing the strip tease is supposed to mean something but it just like that did nothing for me at all i found his character frustrating throughout i mean to mean something but it just like that did nothing for

me at all i found his character frustrating throughout i mean as you know that i just like did not take to that character at all i didn't like him i thought he was both snobby and exactly all of the things that he claimed that he was above like yeah yeah i just i just didn't i thought he's like such a snotty little asshole who is horrible to his wife didn't know how to communicate with her again a legitimate relationship dynamic to explore but like it felt like at the end he's like now i got my wife back and she's got this cool new makeover and it's like but you did nothing you did nothing and the last thing he did before he did his weird little routine that i didn't like was like talk shit about her on the radio.

And it was like, is anyone going to tell her about that? Is anyone going to tell her that he like called her a hot piece of ass who is an alcoholic that hates him on the radio? Because I would not be thrilled to hear my spouse saying shit like that. True. But then I'd be like, but he's exactly right. I am a hot. I was like, yeah,

I am a hot knife too. I hate him. And I'd stop drinking if I, if I just left him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

when Francine and Lily show up to the game at the end, one of them says, what am I even doing here? And I'm like, yeah, what are you even doing i wish that i knew the answer well i think if if if lily wanted to go to that last game she did not really have a lot of friends among the other wives true you know so you know like as an ally maybe and

there is another scene and you know you know we've talked mainly about the same two three women um but there are some scenes with the other wife like there's a scene where the wives are all in their car waiting for their husbands to get home from a bus trip and i i thought it's a sort of a sad scene but in in the in the same way they kind of like have to kind of you know form their own little group and rally around each other and support each other because they clearly are not, you know, too psyched with the life either and they're, you know, what their husbands are doing and, you know, that they're gone and this and that. I wish, since this is mostly an ensemble cast, you know, you've got Paul Newman is like the main

character, but you've got a lot of little subplots with various other characters that there was more focus on the wives of these hockey players because to me they're in more interesting situations than especially because all so many of the men are characterized as either just being like hotheaded or trying to prove something about their masculinity or their sleazy creeps or their wildly homophobic, you know, all of this stuff that I don't want to see. And then the women are in this position of, you know, it's a time where a lot of people in like hetero couples the women were still relying on on their husbands for sustainability like for his income and yeah women in the workplace

were not as welcome as they are today so it was hard to be a single woman or to be you know someone earning your own way as a woman at that time and so they're relying on these men who are not treating them well at all but it's also very like normalized culturally but they still are like heavily drinking about it there's a scene where i well actually i i liked the scene i think you're gonna reference because i yeah it's i'm trying to like put this through because it's like it's not like there were not movies that had women protagonists in the 70s but in sports movies i know that that was i i feel like i don't know i, I feel like I feel a little defensive of Nancy Dodd because I will say I do think that in this movie, the men, with the exception of Reg, who at least you see a few layers of, even though I kind of dislike all of them. But you do see different layers of this character. So there's like nuance in how he's written.

But I think that the women that are presented far more broadly than the men are because most of the hockey team except for like ned and reg are like just like here's this guy and this is what he does and how he reacts like here's a sexist guy here's a violent guy here's a homophobic guy and you're like there's all these guys and they're written in the very very broad way that men in raunchy comedies are which is kind of why i don't like the genre but i will say that like i mean i even think back to like raunchy comedies that came out when we were the target audience and i'm thinking like early hangover movies and like Jada Apatow movies and shit like that and I feel like in this movie you get women like more different kinds of women than you did like 30 years later in some cases but true I think the hockey wives are the most broadly written women that appear in the movie and I didn't love that because I feel like it in the same way that i didn't like when ned was like a snotty like i went to whatever fucking school he went to and so i'm better than most of the guys

on this team like it's just like a moral superiority and lily kind of takes that into how she treats the hockey wives where i think she treats them kind of as like bimbos who aren't as smart as her and it seems like that is a part of the reason that she doesn't hang out with them because it seems like the other hockey wives who I don't know if we get names for them, they seem like they, they, I mean, they have a lot in common. A lot of what they have in common sucks is like, they are sort of along for the ride of their husband's career. And it seems isolating and depressing

and frustrating and i thought it was she's made a joke up but we see the same hockey wife a few different times who's constantly like kind of referencing like johnny either like johnny yes johnny's wife who's johnny i have no idea which player johnny is but he's one of them one of those but i thought johnny's wife like i she's played for laughs mostly but i thought it was like i don't know i didn't i liked her like she was she was like trying to make the best of what she seemed to know was a bad situation but she was like i'm trying to get my husband to read a book or like i'm trying to get my husband to do anything except be a fucking goon which which is like, whatever, what like all the guys in the team are.

And it's, you know, it's not is it the most progressive thing ever? No, but I did feel like there is like, she was like an interesting character that I wish they had been played for more than laughs. because when one of the fights that Lily and Ned have in public, Lily basically ends by being like, me and Ned are better than everyone here, bye, and leaves. And Johnny's wife, who, God, I wish she had a name, responds to that by being like, oh, I really feel for her. And you're like, that's, I don't know. Whatever. I guess I understand. it seems like it's implied

in the movie that those women don't connect with each other because of class differences but i felt like the hot the hockey wives i thought were played broadly in a way that it would have been because i i appreciated that the movie made time for women at all which again it's like i like sports movies almost never do and if you if you do it's like the supportive wife like grabbing their husband's hand being like go go coach him baby or whatever the fuck which is like so fucking boring but it's like how a lot women appear in sports movies at all but there was especially because it's like nancy does seem to want to include women but it felt like well to an extent like i'm happy to include educated women but like it seemed like the hockey wives were i

just feel like there was room for them to be played off as more of kind of one-liners but i liked that scene in the car where it was like even though these women don't get along they do have a common struggle and they are pushed aside and expected to put up with all of this shit and it's like leading to addiction issues for them and yeah they all seem to be self-medicating to fight the just either loneliness or abuse that they're putting up with right can we talk about suzanne because let's talk about suzanne so suzanne is the character i think she's only in one scene yeah which is wild because the the actor who plays her is like so successful and won an oscar like this same year oh wow wait

what's her name i didn't even look it up belinda dylan you probably my dad picked up on this i was like oh she is she i think most iconically plays the mom in a christmas story but she she or no sorry she was nominated this same year for playing um i think the mom character in close encounters okay but whatever she's like a very very successful actor but she's only in this movie for one minute for one scene and it's the scene where she's in bed with Reggie and she's talking about how her husband Hanrahan when he was like out on the road for a game how she and another hockey wife they would get together and talk about how depressed and lonely they were without the men. And then also how they lamented that they never did much of anything themselves, which I feel like is also maybe what Lily struggles with to some degree where she's like, I'm not doing anything but like supporting my husband

in his career. But like, what about or maybe this is just like headcanon that i'm assigning to lily but anyway suzanne's talking about how like oh i never did anything for myself and then she goes on to describe how one night when she and this other hockey wife were hanging out they were drinking and they started fooling around but then they kept getting together and having sex sober and that they were like engaging in this like sexual relationship that they were both into. And she's like, hey, Reg, have you ever considered sleeping with men? And at first he says no. But then he's like, who knows? Maybe I'll start sleeping with old goalies.

And then I'm like, OK, he's, I don't know. That scene is like almost, and then it's so frustrating. But it's also like, I feel like it's like Reg sucks. And it's like, it's so frustrating to see a character that in their more private moments seems to be a better person than they are in their public moments. Yeah, right. Because again, the whole reason this scene even happens narratively in the movie is that so he now has information that he uses against his opponent in a in a way that like

outs um this guy's wife like disparages her for her queerness and he's like using that as ammunition to try to win the game and like for his own personal benefit. He does something similar with the general manager, that guy Joe, where he's like, hey, remember that night that you I walked in on you and you were wearing like women's lingerie, and then you came on to me? Well, I don't have to tell anyone about that as long as you give me so he basically like blackmails him to learn the owner who the owner of the team is that's something that yeah and then that's like i do think reggie is a super villain because i do almost believe him when he says that he like he's like i get it it's the 70s queer people exist like i do believe that he understands that but the fact that he understands that and is not above exploiting societal homophobia against

people that he knows and says he likes it's like that's that's extra evil that's that's extra evil and and in that scene you know like first of all the scene where he you know kind of baits the opponent the goalie right you know with this information that he has about his wife you know from a hockey perspective you know nobody nobody stands on the ice and shouts at someone and then moves over you know they're not shouting plot points at each other on that no no so that that was like annoying because some of the you know some of the stuff with the Hanson brothers the hockey the skating the this that the hitting you know is is legit those guys were really hockey players but so reg dunlop enrages the goalie who attacks him finally after a goal and it's a big fight now does anybody know at first like what caused this big

fight did anybody hear what reg was saying i don't think so just the goalie yeah so he he could have left it there on the ice right but then he comes but then he comes in and tells his whole team like when they ask him what did you say and he tells the whole thing about someone else that he was you know I don't know that is

diabolical it's evil and it's so fresh because I didn't hate their scene together before I saw the scene after. Because it felt like these are themes and just like queer people like just appearing in movies at all in a way that was like it seemed like they both accepted each other in that scene and like the language is not great but it's like for the time it was like wow this i it seems very unlikely that this was appearing in like popular summer comedies at the time so okay like you know i can navigate around the dated elements of it but yeah it's uh it yeah he he was so evil about that and i feel like she because that character never comes back it doesn't come back around in a satisfying way but in the same way i

i love i mean i love her i like that scene i think the last thing that we were talking about dad that i think is extra evil about reg in that situation is that she mentions in that scene that when her husband found out that she had had sex with women he was so abusive to her that she was in that scene that when her husband found out that she had had sex with women he was so abusive to her that she was in the hospital and it's like well reg clearly doesn't care about that yeah because he then taunts her husband that he knows to be abusive and and she says that like she's hiding out from him like it's just it sounds like she was in this tremendously abusive relationship which again i believe it like seems you know whatever that that still happens uh but the fact that like our movie star hero then does that it i feel like it did undercut it the the fact that the movie went out

of its way to say like that her having a queer relationship not only was he upset about being cheated on but also this thing that felt i don't know i mean that i guess you can tell us for the time like there seemed like there was talk among the men of just confusion and like hateful confusion in henry hann and the whole team's case they're like well if my wife has a relationship with a woman then am i gay and I can't be gay? And like just like stuff that makes no sense. Yeah. That was a stretch, I think.

I don't know that that, you know. I was like, people don't ever think that. Do people believe that, right? Yeah. I'm not sure that, you know. But when I was a kid, I don't really think that that is what somebody thought. I was like, it doesn't make any sense. Okay.

I was curious about that. But, yeah, I mean, just, again, Reg sucks. I love Paul Newman and I love Salad, but I hate Reg. And it is what it is. But I did think that it was again, it's like this this movie feels like it's doing incremental stuff in this genre that you don't see decades later. So I do appreciate that. It's like there is a queer character who is like open about it, is cool, is performed in a way that felt authentic and cool but also the 70s element of it is that they're immediately put in danger and then never appear in the movie again so the and you know she's she's talking about her sexual relationship with a woman but the scene we're seeing on screen is her in a sexual situation with a man because heaven forbid we see like

queer romance or sexuality actually on screen at that time sure or and and it's like i sort of chalked that up more to like well how did people talk about uh bisexuality in the 70s did they know how did they have the tools i don't think i just sort of assumed they didn't but also like the way that raunchy comedies of like the 90s and 2000s would have which i think are worse than this movie honestly they are they yeah and we've talked about i think i've like speculated as to to why but the way that those movies will have visibility of queer characters or of people of color, but they're only there to then be like punching bags to the main characters who are just saying horrible things and like making jokes at their expense of like,

in whatever way they are marginalized that's that's why they're there and it's so jokes can be made at their expense so and i felt the same way for suzanne like yes she's a queer character who's talking openly about her queerness to someone who seems receptive to it but we learn that that scene is only in the movie so that this guy can use that as ammunition to win a hockey game. And then boast about it. He's like, yeah, team. The reason we won is because I outed this woman

who has an abusive husband. Anyone who had listened. Yeah, that's, I think that's like, not that it justifies any kind of behavior but the fact that he does it a second time like he shouts it at her husband which is putting her in danger in one way but then he does it a second time right after it's like he stinks he's the worst um how are you doing dad i don't have much else to say except that their bus driver is wearing a helmet with a swastika on it. I noticed that as well.

I never caught that the first several times I watched the movie. You know, Walt, who just goes from Walt the bus driver, and, you know, he's another one. He gets all swept up in the, you know, chief's mania and starts, you know, hammering the bus, you know, to make it look meaner. And then the swastika, you know. But you're just like, is that, yeah, that was a kind of jump scare in the movie. And it's like, if it was, I think maybe the most generous reading of that was like oh this team is getting more and more evil but you're like there's so many there's no world where that was necessary no yeah there's also an indigenous player during the final game i want to talk about that yes i mean i know obviously you did because you brought it up. Yes. In general, because the team in this movie are called the Chiefs. And there's a lot of and I think that that's an ongoing conversation in sports is is teams that are named and characterized indigenous people as mascots and yes that's that's an ongoing

conversation also in hockey specifically because the chicago blackhawks i mean dad i know you know this uh you you know this whole conversation of of representing indigenous people as mascots and the issues and conversations that have taken place and also that team is still called the chicago blackhawks they did not make any changes after that conversation was had i was trying to it happened in the mid 20 times but i thought team yes what is his clarence swamp town screaming aka screaming buffalo who is played by a real hockey player named joe nolan who is first nations i was worried that i was really worried that it was a guy in brown face. A white guy, yeah.

But this is a real Indigenous person, a real hockey player. However, the way that the costuming and the just characterization of that character is still relying heavily on stereotypes of Indigenous and First Nations people. So, whoops. Yeah.

That's a tough one. You know, I mean, all the way down to, like I said earlier, so much of the hockey parts of it are like, you know, an exaggeration, you know, like almost like a caricature, you know, of that scene. That's one of the things in the movie the movie it's like that never would be allowed you know he just he right that's that's a you know and again it's you know we've talked you know if you could snip this guy out and this guy out it really changes thing that was like all right you've you've made your point, you know, that the Syracuse team is loaded up on rugged guys, you know, to pay you back, you know, like how many did you have to have, right?

Well, and it's also like, I don't think that the solution to that is cutting out that character. It's just presenting this real life First Nations hockey player in a way that wasn't, you know, inherently connected to the fact that he was a first nations player like i don't know i have no objection to like having a because because like you've mentioned that there are so many real life hockey players that appear in this movie and joe nolan like played on a number of teams including the johnstown jets he's from a hockey family he is uh this is according to hockeylegends.com scholarly journal yes exactly he is ojibwa he is the uncle of buffalo sabers coach ted nolan and great uncle of jordan nolan of the la kings so he's like from a like legacy hockey family. There's

no issue with him being in this movie. It's just like presenting him as not inherently connected to his like, it's just like it's obviously written by a white writer of the time disrespectful and just being like, well, this is his heritage. So this is going to be the whole character and we're going to write it in the way like we're going to write him for a white audience. Yeah. In the most tropey way possible. And it would have been cool. Like it would have been cool if Joe Nolan was cast in a role that was not that like was just like he could have played a he could be a guy on that team.

But just it's obviously racist the way it's done. Right. With more than 15 seconds of screen time you know yeah um i also this is like separate but i learned about it on my trip at the hockey hall of fame so i wanted to mention it um and we can link it in the description of this episode but um just the history of native american and first nations players within, there's a lot to be discussed and learned about, where there are still a number of, I mean, like, there are a number of Native players in professional hockey today. But there's also a history of hockey in reservation schools. And

hockey has a role in Canadian reservation schools. There's been a lot written about it in the last couple of years, that I think is very relevant to what we're talking about. Very interesting. And especially when this Joe Nolan character came up, it was like, oh, there's actually a lot of troubling and relevant Indigenous history within hockey. That if you're if you're interested, we can link a piece that I read below and I learned about it. I don't know why I keep plugging the Hockey Museum. I thought it was really interesting. And we'll link it. Yes, indeed.

Ironically, I have never been to the Hockey Hall of Fame. I know. I was just like texting you pictures the whole time. Where is it? Toronto? Yes. In Toronto, the Hockey Hall of Fame. I saw the Stanley Cup from a healthy distance,

and then I did not pay $10 to have my picture taken next to it. Nice, nice. I took a picture of it from far away. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss? Well, just because I did all the research. Yeah, he's got notes. One of the interesting things, I mean, the people who know this movie would be very frustrated.

It was like, how could you not talk about, you know, the interesting things to me are that there really were, like, so the three Hanson brothers, there really were three brothers on that Johnstown team. Their last name was Carlson. They were all supposed to be in the movie. One of them got called up to a better team. So they had to replace him with somebody who looked similar. His last name was Hanson.

And that's how they named the three, the Hansons. Got it. There's a lot of little interesting things there. The one character that um he's like i want to collect that bounty who is another person that reg dunlop you know manipulates because he's you know kind of like a a peacenik and a meditator and everything like that and all of a sudden he becomes dave killer carlson well dave killer Killer Carlson was a real player and he

replaced the Hanson that had to leave. There's a lot of funny things in there. So he thought he was going to get to play himself, but instead he had to become like a surrogate brother and be in a movie where someone

played him. My last favorite thing is I'm no actor, but throughout the movie there are references made to this player that everybody's fearful of, you know, Ogie Oglethorpe. Right, yes. Ogie finally shows up in that last game. Never says a word, scowling at everybody in that scene scowling and then fighting that is ned dowd whose sister wrote the movie oh okay nancy dowd's brother yes so so ogi is you

know but i mean i just that scene just cracks me up just the skating out with the you know chewing the gum and looking either way it's you know but for that amount of screen time, just you, you know, to sell it. I'm like, all right, nice job, guy. Yeah, I mean, I like, I think that that's like just the, I don't know, element of just like how she did this sort of immersive approach to researching and then seemed to include a lot of people that she'd come across or learned about in that research in the movie like that's i just i don't know i think that's cool you know and there you know there are there are elements of truth in it too and then i'll stop talking but you know the the charlestown chiefs slash johnstown jets that 1977 season that concluded so they could make the movie the jets didn't go out of business but their league folded oh okay you know so this this this was a thing that was happening and that league

had only been around for four years the other thing that's interesting is like you know how outrageous it was that like why would anybody buy a hockey team in florida well you know there are professional hockey teams in florida now and it's you know it's gone pretty well in a couple of the places so yeah well I I guess that's the last thing I wanted to say was that I appreciated that the movie went out of its way to connect the struggle of this hockey team to what was going on in their community and how like it was just like acknowledging I don't know it felt like oh because it was done off of this very specific reporting in this region or this research i guess in this region it like does reflect the socioeconomic problems in the pittsburgh area in the late 70s and connects it to this hockey team in a way that feels i don't know like class conscious in a way that a lot of sports movies either aren't or feel like overly sort of

melodramatic about it just felt like it fit very cleanly into this world and like not only like it wasn't like the town and the team because it was a minor league team the team is a part of the town and so they're all sort of sharing the same kind of issues um right yeah that and we you know we're talking about this earlier but how reggie like does a bunch of you know it's like desperate times call for desperate measures and under capitalism when you know your livelihood is being threatened a lot of people do have to act out of desperation and and do things that they would maybe not otherwise do to survive but and so in that manifests in reggie as like manipulating people in a way that's like extremely harmful so i guess my point is like you can do things out of desperation because capitalism is killing us all without also being extremely homophobic and, you know, all the other things that he does.

It would be one thing if all he did was just like lie to his team and like plant that story in the sports writer to be like, I heard we were getting bought by Florida. And he, if he tells his team this and his objective is just to get morale up so that they can win and like actually maybe have a shot. Like I wouldn't have any problem with that really, because it's like a, not a,

not a diabolical lie. It's a victimless crime. Yeah. Yeah. But the fact that he's doing that plus all manner of like blackmailing homophobia outing people all this stuff like that's where i can't yeah so you're not so you're not just gonna call them all that old rascal red chunk not today okay not today baby um so okay uh let's get through it i did this movie does it does well i was so surprised to hear that yeah he kept

checking with me to make sure that i and he was was like, wait, what? So it doesn't, well, it's a flawed metric. It doesn't, just because it passes doesn't mean it's a feminist movie. No, okay. Because Lily and Francine talk about Lily's hair and cheekbones. And Cher. And Cher. They mention Cher. And then there's the other scene where it's Lily and then the two other women who I don't

think have names. So by that caveat, it would not pass. But they are talking about drinking alcohol. And they're talking about addiction problems. Yeah. Like, yeah. So it's by the by the skin of its teeth, but it does technically pass. And I feel like I want to I want to hand it to this movie as passing because

of it feels like in many ways the odds are stacked against any sports movie about a men's team in passing i was really surprised that it technically passes i mean if i can close i mean when i thought about it and uh you know you know the the theme of your cast I really just thought that this was a movie that you know crass and and guys and but that the women kind of like stuck up for each other helped each other um didn't always I mean Francine's great I mean she tells them like right off the bat one of their first scenes like you know you're a terrible coach. Your team stinks, you know. Yeah, she really has no faith in him and does not like it. Right, you know. So, and I love, like I said, I love most of the last scene.

I still can't figure out, you know, how Lily and Ned end up together. And I agree with you, Caitlin. I thought that the scene with Francine was going to empower her to really go. But, you know, the Francine, you know, goes her own way. I mean, it's just, you know, it's sort of her own path because she, you know, cuts through the parade and goes down the, you know, down the road by herself. I just thought it was, you know, that that was an element to the movie that shouldn't really you know be overlooked for sure yeah I mean

yeah and I do think for especially for its time and also for this genre even now it is like unusual for women to be included also as much as I hate Ned he was in Twin Peaks so that's kind of fun he played hockey at the University of New Hampshire as well.

And we can't take that from him either, of course. It's big time hockey. Oh, is it? Yes. Okay, now I sound like an asshole. I didn't know that. This movie surprised me in ways I wasn't expecting it to. But?

But we should talk about the most important metric on the face of the planet, which is our nipple scale. Yes, a scale of zero to five nipples in which we rate the movie. That's true. You heard correctly, Mike. Yes, we need to break it down. Zero to five nipples rating the movie

based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens yeah i'll give this movie one nipple for its handful of female characters who obviously i wish the movie had done a lot more with given more just real estate in the story to Suzanne only being there so that her situation could be used as ammunition against her husband is obviously gross, but if she had been a more meaningful character, so I guess I'm giving it one nipple for the potential that the movie mostly squandered. I do appreciate that Francine stands her ground in not being willing to get back together with her shitty husband i i agree that like most movies would have like framed her

as like the he's trying he's trying and at the end he finally gets her back and she's the other trophy. He wins. But this movie doesn't do that. And that does count for something. Wow, the bar is so low. But everything else the movie does as far as it's just like rampant homophobia, ableist slurs are getting tossed around casually. The treatment of the one indigenous character that we see on screen, all that kind of stuff. If anyone is looking for a movie that features mostly men, that is about men who are affected by a steel mill closing, might I recommend the full monty because it handles themes of toxic masculinity and and things like that in a much more thoughtful way i would say um not about

hockey though it is about men stripping although wow similar ending because Slapshot does end in a strip tease. So anyway, I'm glad I guess that this movie, at least for like Jamie, yours and my generation and younger generations, it is not something that most people are super aware of. It hasn't ended up as like this piece of classic Hollywood cinema that you must revisit. It's it doesn't have much of a lasting legacy in that way. Well, I mean, except for hockey fans where it has a massive like it in a niche way.

It has a huge legacy in the general way. Not as much. True, true. Yeah. So one nipple and I will give it to my favorite character, Francine. I'm going to give this movie two nipples because it's my birthday. And I know, but I do think that like, I agree. I mean, we've we've talked about it at length now where this movie is not generous in so many ways it is wildly homophobic uh the one native character it represents which

is also um i think that joe nolan is the only non-white character who really appears in this movie meaningfully in any way yeah which again is not necessary especially because of the region you're in it's like there's plenty of diversity to be found in this region i know that hockey is predominantly a white sport but it's a movie you can do whatever the fuck you want but i do think that this movie is i don't know i mean a sports comedy in the 70s having women included at all feels kind of like a miracle to me and having a successful sports movie written by a woman feels kind of like a miracle to me for this era and so i want to miracle another hockey movie yep there's one but that's like the exact kind of corny ass movie i'm

talking about where all the girls are like you've got this baby and you're just like oh my god like i do think that this movie has incredible fault it's like at the end because because we've talked about so many broad comedies on this show and all of the swings are huge and when they hit they hit and when they're bad they're awful they're almost worse than you can find in any genre right and i think the same is true in horror or like any like broad niche genre that tends to be true and so this movie is wildly dated i understand why it is not popularly watched i'm not even recommending it really i just was surprised by the fact that women were

presented in uh for the most part in empathetic way even though i did not agree with how everyone everyone's arc was resolved so i'm gonna go two and i'm gonna give one to francine because she rocks and one to lily because she deserved better and i hope that she you know divorced ned six months later or whatever fingers crossed dad what would you give this movie oh based on his portrayal of of women intersectionally boy i have to i have to I'm not trained. I'm not trained. Whatever feels right in your heart. Yes. I guess two, just because two.

Oh, because nipples. I see. Well, no, just because two. And I have to pick characters too? You can do. You can distribute them or you can keep them, whatever you want to do. I mean, I like, I don't know. I just, like Francine is a, is a great character. You know, I mean, I like that part of, you know, how she's like, you know, I don't care if you, you know, I know you, you know, I know you as a person.

And, you know, you know, you might be able to fool to fool everybody else you know but you can't fool me anymore and goes around the way and you know again mrs mrs hammerhand i never remember her first i just think that's a touching kind of a but that's that's a you know that's quite a scene with her and it's it's serious and funny and i just really thought that that was, you know, probably back in the day, it was like, oh, that's a gratuitous thing, you know? Like, look at this thing. But, you know, looked at now and her story and everything like that. I think that's, you know, I don't know what to say. I can't say that.

I think that's great. But, you know, I mean, it's one that like sticks with me anyway. I know what you mean. It would be a fine scene if the thing that happens after it didn't happen. Exactly. Right, right. That's why it's like this movie is just like frustrating in that way where you're like, wow, this? Why did you go out of your way to do that if you were just going to treat them as a plot point and never show them again? Which I think is also inherent to this genre in the ways that I don't know.

I found it especially frustrating, too, because it's like I thought Suzanne was in the one scene she had was presented with empathy and she was cool. And it was like, oh, this is really. And then like we were talking about, like she's treated horrifically and we never get to see her again. We don't know what happens to her. And the movie doesn't really seem to have interest in it because she was ultimately just a plot point to get Red to win to the next step. Yeah. So a more complicated movie than i was expecting and i'm glad we talked about it yes indeed and thanks for joining us dad mr mike oh hey thanks for having me along happy to do it uh dad do you have anything you want to plug

yeah where can people follow you on twitter i don't have a there's no need to follow me on twitter my uh my days are done my days of mouthing off and i just uh you know which i didn't do that much i was not i was not the king of the hot takes and now i am the king of the silent take i'll just i'll just read along with you all oh nice well well i you know i could i could plug this you know this this podcast a certain book about hot dogs you know there's always something but yeah you simply must just google book about hot dogs yeah all right well well dad i really uh thank you for for coming on the show and i really can't believe you let us you badgered us into doing this. I'm so glad we did, though.

I don't know. It's my birthday, and so I'm a dictator, and I get to do whatever I want. Happy birthday, Jamie. Thank you. Way to go, Jamie. Happy birthday. I remember it. He remembered it.

No, this episode was very special to me both of you so thank you i appreciate it and i'm really glad we got to do it yay love you jamie love you too way to go way to go team we did it we won we won the championship game we won we we randomly did a strip tease and somehow we won the best podcast in the federal league yeah yeah we are kind of and i say this with love we are kind of a minor league podcast and and yet our fan base is intense and they fill the stands and we appreciate that we really do because to be a big podcast you have to talk about murder in a dishonest way and we don't do that so what do you do or you have to be like a fascist so it's fine or you have to be uh uh know a lot about sports and we don't

we clearly demonstrated that today that we do not know yeah if there was any reason then now you both did you both did great thank you thanks so. You can find us on Twitter. It means a lot, I know. We are nothing without the validation of men. It's true. Of dads. I tried so hard. I only tease.

He's crying. You can find us online at Bechtelcast on Instagram and Twitter. You can sign up for Patreon, a.k.a. Matreon, at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast, where you get two bonus episodes every month for a mere $5. And also get access to about 150 episodes of Back Catalog on the Patreon. Wow. And it's my birthday over there this month, too. We really value birthdays on this podcast so it's true we'll be covering little shop of horrors and a second one that

on the day of this recording i have not yet decided my second evil pick for the patreon but oh i will think of something and it will be annoying so head over there for that and caitlin when it comes happy birthday to you too thank you so much um it will be in about eight months okay something like that so just keep that in mind it's coming yes i don't want to miss out my chance thank you so much and you can also get our merch at tpublic.com slash the bechtel cast for our glorious items available for purchase at any time. And with that, why don't we get on this local parade float and lie about our wives leaving us? Let's do it. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. The Bechtelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus, and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo.

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