April 18, 2025 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, the iconic Hanson Brothers from Slap Shot weren’t actors—they were real minor league hockey players. When Dave "Killer" Hanson was cast in the 1977 cult classic alongside Paul Newman, the unforgettable trio was born. Here's David himself with the true story behind one of the most legendary roles in sports movie history.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and This is Our American Stories.
Decades after it was released in nineteen seventy seven, the
movie Slap Shot holds up as one of the true classics.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Of American sports film.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Its comical depiction of a minor league hockey team resorting
to violent play to gain popularity in a declining factory
town still resonates with audiences around the world. Much of
the film's success has to do with Paul Newman's performance
as an aging player coach, but the movie might never
have achieved its iconic status without the bespectacled, brawling characters
(00:47):
known as the Hanson Brothers, played by former Johnston Jets
players Steve and Jeff Carlson and David Hanson. Dave Hanson
grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he eventually start
in football, baseball, and hockey at Humboldt High School. He
played for the University of Minnesota under legendary coach Herb Brooks,
(01:09):
and of course, that's hockey. Hanson then played for the
Detroit Red Wings and Minnesota North Stars in the National
Hockey League. The following excerpts are from a video interview
with Dave Hanson by Paul Guggenheimer was recorded in Pittsburgh
and has provided courtesy of Primal Interviews with Paul Guggenheimer.
(01:30):
Let's go to Dave Hanson.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
What I tell people is the movie is based on
more fact and fiction. It was based on a team
that I was playing for in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, called the
Johnstown Jets in nineteen seventy four seventy five, And pretty
much everything that goes on in the movie happened in
one former fashion. There was three brothers playing for us.
There were big tough wour glasses named Jeff Jack and
(01:53):
Steve Carlson. There was a fell and a team that
was called Dave Killer Hanson Emy, He's a killer. And
then all the other characters on the team or on
the other teams were either real characters of the game
(02:16):
or a combination of characters of the game. So so
when Nancy Dowd, who was the sister of one of
the players on the team, came down and started follow
us around and wrote the script, obviously they wrote into
three brothers and the killer and a few other people.
And when they got around to making the film UH
and casting for the film, UH, they wanted to get
(02:37):
a actors like Nick Nolty, Peter Strauss, and you know,
a group of Hollywood actors to play these roles. Of course,
because you had Paul Newman, the number one actor at
the time of Hollywood. Well, these guys could not skate
no matter how they tried to give him lessons and
took them out in hockey practices and hired you know,
private instructors, and they just couldn't get him skated well
(03:00):
enough to make it look like a professional game. So
Nancy basically said, why don't we go back and let
these guys be themselves and see if that would work out.
And basically that's what happened. They came back to Johnstown.
They'd be in the Hollywood George ray Hill the director,
and Nancy and a few others, and sat the Carlson
brothers down, and sat myself down, and we read a
(03:21):
few lines in the script and they shook their heads,
and yet they still took a shot at us and
pretty well cast us. And so it was going to
be Jeff Jack and Steve Carlson. We're going to be
the Hanson brothers, Dave Killer Hans was going to be
Dave Killer Carlson. But Jack ended up going to Edmonton
Oilers to play when we got around the film and
so they just plucked me out of the Carlson rolling,
(03:43):
threw me in as a Hansen brother and we were
off and running or off and skating. I should say, okay, guys,
show us what you got. When we got first stuck
in front of the camera and we're told to act
and we're given lines, we really were bad. We were robotic.
(04:06):
And it took a couple of times and you could
see where George roy Hill was getting frustrated. It finally
got to the point where George said, let's stop for
a minute and take a breath and pull the society.
Says okay, boys, this doesn't seem to be working too well.
He says, so let's try a different angle. What would
you do in this situation, you know, here's you'd set
it up and we'd say, I don't know, we would
(04:28):
just react. We would probably just do something off. He said, well,
let's give that a try. Next shot, we did and
we pulled it off. I kind of had libs some
stuff and throwing the regular stuff, and he just says,
that's great, don't change it. That's the way we'll roll
from now on. So it really boiled down to, quite frankly,
that the actors were the one acting. The hockey players
(04:49):
are ourselves were just being ourselves, the Hansons. We were
twenty twenty one, twenty two years old and had ordered
the three of us, and when they first came to
us and they said, hey, would you guys like to
do a movie? We said, well, how long is it
going to take. It's going to take two, three months,
(05:10):
three your summer, well, we were used to take her
to summers off, going back to Minnesota, playing softball summer long,
drinking beer and getting ready for training, camping in the fall.
So it's like, okay, well why not let's give this
a try. So we had no idea for us. It
was just an opportunity to drink a lot of beer,
have free food, get paid for doing something, and you know,
meet Paul Newman and hopefully meet some chicks and hopefully
(05:33):
have some fun doing it. So we had no clue
even to the point where before the film came out,
Universal Studios came back to us and offered us a
seven year, seven movie contract deal, and we said, nah,
we want to be hockey players. We don't want to
be actors. So there's, you know, there's an indication of
(05:55):
how smart we were. I was having a pregame now
in my apartment and there's knocking going on the door
and it wakes me up. And there's knocking still going on,
and go what you know? So I opened the door
and I'm in my underwear and my my dirty sweat
socks and I just open the door and I go
what And he looks up and he says, you're Dave Hanson.
(06:16):
I says yeah, and he says I'm Paul Newman. I says, yeah,
well yeah, Paul. He says yeah. He says, geez, do
we wake you? And I says, well, yeah, kind of it.
And he says, well, you know, then he apologize and
I said, you know, I'm going, oh, no, no problem.
He says, what's up. He says, well, I got some
you know, art director with me and a couple of
movie guys. Said guys, and they want to come in
(06:37):
and take a look at a hockey player's apartment. We
want to see what it looks like. Do you mind
if we come in? And I says, Paul, I got
no problem as long as you let me go back
to bed, you know, just stay out of my bedroom.
You can do whatever you want. So and he said,
before I went, and he says, we'll be quiet, and
we just want to look around and take some pictures
and some polaroids. And then he says, but hey, Dave,
(06:58):
he says, you got any beer? Yeah, what's up? He says, Well,
the race is not. He says, you know, I'd like
to maybe crack a beerd and sit down and watch
the race with these guys. Says, now, no problem. Drink
as much as you want TVs in there, go for it.
So I was the first meeting of Paul, which was
to start for a very good and long friendship.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Everybody just on the fat screaming guil Gil, guilty, this
is honey.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Really, what we were hearing more than anything was the
reviews in the hockey community. You would hear that, you know,
the gms of the teams or you know, the commissioner
of the league would say, you know, that movie's a disgrace.
You know, it doesn't portray hockey. And then of course
you'd hear the players saying that's absolutely right on. You know,
(07:41):
it's it's the way it is, you know, obviously a
little satirical about it, but that's that's the way it is.
And I'm telling you Prome County is just physically upset.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
By this display. Come on down and get places for
the home games, bring the kids.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
We got entertainment for the whole family. It was short lived,
it didn't bother us. In fact, we ended up we
would have more fun than anything, because now we would
go into we'd go into arenas to play a hockey game,
and I'll use Dallas as an example. I'll go I
went into Dallas where they hated me, and I always
got booed, you know, and warm ups and this and that.
(08:18):
So typically I'm skating around the warmups one time and
I'm hearing the bone and I finally look up and
there's an entire section of fans up there with the
glasses and the fake nose and holding them Charlestown Chiefs
Booster Club. And it was just hilarious. So everybody started
having a good time with it. I'd face off against,
you know, against an opponent that we'd fight all the time,
and he'd looked at me and I look at him.
He'd say, buy a soda after the game. So it
(08:41):
was good stuff. The one that I think of mostly
is Ciskel and Ebert on David Letterman Show, and I
think the question was something like David to Siskel and Ebert,
is there ever a movie that you watched, critiqued and
then later on you kind of went back and realized
(09:04):
you made a mistake on And they said, absolutely, slap Shot.
He says. When we first saw Slap Shot, you know,
we gave it a thumbs down. Later on looked at
it closely and realized, you know, what a great film
that was. And now it's historically always in the top
ten of the best sports movies of all time.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And thanks to Greg Hengler as always for finding this
and doing the work he always does for us on
the producing and editing front. And by the way, again,
if you have not seen Slapshot, watch it with a family.
I mean, it is just great family entertainment and you
will laugh and then you'll just keep laughing.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You don't have to know hockey.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
The Love Slapshot Dave Hansen's story the story of one
of America's great sports movies.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Here on our American stores
This is Lee Habib, and This is Our American Stories.
Decades after it was released in nineteen seventy seven, the
movie Slap Shot holds up as one of the true classics.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Of American sports film.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Its comical depiction of a minor league hockey team resorting
to violent play to gain popularity in a declining factory
town still resonates with audiences around the world. Much of
the film's success has to do with Paul Newman's performance
as an aging player coach, but the movie might never
have achieved its iconic status without the bespectacled, brawling characters
(00:47):
known as the Hanson Brothers, played by former Johnston Jets
players Steve and Jeff Carlson and David Hanson. Dave Hanson
grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he eventually start
in football, baseball, and hockey at Humboldt High School. He
played for the University of Minnesota under legendary coach Herb Brooks,
(01:09):
and of course, that's hockey. Hanson then played for the
Detroit Red Wings and Minnesota North Stars in the National
Hockey League. The following excerpts are from a video interview
with Dave Hanson by Paul Guggenheimer was recorded in Pittsburgh
and has provided courtesy of Primal Interviews with Paul Guggenheimer.
(01:30):
Let's go to Dave Hanson.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
What I tell people is the movie is based on
more fact and fiction. It was based on a team
that I was playing for in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, called the
Johnstown Jets in nineteen seventy four seventy five, And pretty
much everything that goes on in the movie happened in
one former fashion. There was three brothers playing for us.
There were big tough wour glasses named Jeff Jack and
(01:53):
Steve Carlson. There was a fell and a team that
was called Dave Killer Hanson Emy, He's a killer. And
then all the other characters on the team or on
the other teams were either real characters of the game
(02:16):
or a combination of characters of the game. So so
when Nancy Dowd, who was the sister of one of
the players on the team, came down and started follow
us around and wrote the script, obviously they wrote into
three brothers and the killer and a few other people.
And when they got around to making the film UH
and casting for the film, UH, they wanted to get
(02:37):
a actors like Nick Nolty, Peter Strauss, and you know,
a group of Hollywood actors to play these roles. Of course,
because you had Paul Newman, the number one actor at
the time of Hollywood. Well, these guys could not skate
no matter how they tried to give him lessons and
took them out in hockey practices and hired you know,
private instructors, and they just couldn't get him skated well
(03:00):
enough to make it look like a professional game. So
Nancy basically said, why don't we go back and let
these guys be themselves and see if that would work out.
And basically that's what happened. They came back to Johnstown.
They'd be in the Hollywood George ray Hill the director,
and Nancy and a few others, and sat the Carlson
brothers down, and sat myself down, and we read a
(03:21):
few lines in the script and they shook their heads,
and yet they still took a shot at us and
pretty well cast us. And so it was going to
be Jeff Jack and Steve Carlson. We're going to be
the Hanson brothers, Dave Killer Hans was going to be
Dave Killer Carlson. But Jack ended up going to Edmonton
Oilers to play when we got around the film and
so they just plucked me out of the Carlson rolling,
(03:43):
threw me in as a Hansen brother and we were
off and running or off and skating. I should say, okay, guys,
show us what you got. When we got first stuck
in front of the camera and we're told to act
and we're given lines, we really were bad. We were robotic.
(04:06):
And it took a couple of times and you could
see where George roy Hill was getting frustrated. It finally
got to the point where George said, let's stop for
a minute and take a breath and pull the society.
Says okay, boys, this doesn't seem to be working too well.
He says, so let's try a different angle. What would
you do in this situation, you know, here's you'd set
it up and we'd say, I don't know, we would
(04:28):
just react. We would probably just do something off. He said, well,
let's give that a try. Next shot, we did and
we pulled it off. I kind of had libs some
stuff and throwing the regular stuff, and he just says,
that's great, don't change it. That's the way we'll roll
from now on. So it really boiled down to, quite frankly,
that the actors were the one acting. The hockey players
(04:49):
are ourselves were just being ourselves, the Hansons. We were
twenty twenty one, twenty two years old and had ordered
the three of us, and when they first came to
us and they said, hey, would you guys like to
do a movie? We said, well, how long is it
going to take. It's going to take two, three months,
(05:10):
three your summer, well, we were used to take her
to summers off, going back to Minnesota, playing softball summer long,
drinking beer and getting ready for training, camping in the fall.
So it's like, okay, well why not let's give this
a try. So we had no idea for us. It
was just an opportunity to drink a lot of beer,
have free food, get paid for doing something, and you know,
meet Paul Newman and hopefully meet some chicks and hopefully
(05:33):
have some fun doing it. So we had no clue
even to the point where before the film came out,
Universal Studios came back to us and offered us a
seven year, seven movie contract deal, and we said, nah,
we want to be hockey players. We don't want to
be actors. So there's, you know, there's an indication of
(05:55):
how smart we were. I was having a pregame now
in my apartment and there's knocking going on the door
and it wakes me up. And there's knocking still going on,
and go what you know? So I opened the door
and I'm in my underwear and my my dirty sweat
socks and I just open the door and I go
what And he looks up and he says, you're Dave Hanson.
(06:16):
I says yeah, and he says I'm Paul Newman. I says, yeah,
well yeah, Paul. He says yeah. He says, geez, do
we wake you? And I says, well, yeah, kind of it.
And he says, well, you know, then he apologize and
I said, you know, I'm going, oh, no, no problem.
He says, what's up. He says, well, I got some
you know, art director with me and a couple of
movie guys. Said guys, and they want to come in
(06:37):
and take a look at a hockey player's apartment. We
want to see what it looks like. Do you mind
if we come in? And I says, Paul, I got
no problem as long as you let me go back
to bed, you know, just stay out of my bedroom.
You can do whatever you want. So and he said,
before I went, and he says, we'll be quiet, and
we just want to look around and take some pictures
and some polaroids. And then he says, but hey, Dave,
(06:58):
he says, you got any beer? Yeah, what's up? He says, Well,
the race is not. He says, you know, I'd like
to maybe crack a beerd and sit down and watch
the race with these guys. Says, now, no problem. Drink
as much as you want TVs in there, go for it.
So I was the first meeting of Paul, which was
to start for a very good and long friendship.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Everybody just on the fat screaming guil Gil, guilty, this
is honey.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Really, what we were hearing more than anything was the
reviews in the hockey community. You would hear that, you know,
the gms of the teams or you know, the commissioner
of the league would say, you know, that movie's a disgrace.
You know, it doesn't portray hockey. And then of course
you'd hear the players saying that's absolutely right on. You know,
(07:41):
it's it's the way it is, you know, obviously a
little satirical about it, but that's that's the way it is.
And I'm telling you Prome County is just physically upset.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
By this display. Come on down and get places for
the home games, bring the kids.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
We got entertainment for the whole family. It was short lived,
it didn't bother us. In fact, we ended up we
would have more fun than anything, because now we would
go into we'd go into arenas to play a hockey game,
and I'll use Dallas as an example. I'll go I
went into Dallas where they hated me, and I always
got booed, you know, and warm ups and this and that.
(08:18):
So typically I'm skating around the warmups one time and
I'm hearing the bone and I finally look up and
there's an entire section of fans up there with the
glasses and the fake nose and holding them Charlestown Chiefs
Booster Club. And it was just hilarious. So everybody started
having a good time with it. I'd face off against,
you know, against an opponent that we'd fight all the time,
and he'd looked at me and I look at him.
He'd say, buy a soda after the game. So it
(08:41):
was good stuff. The one that I think of mostly
is Ciskel and Ebert on David Letterman Show, and I
think the question was something like David to Siskel and Ebert,
is there ever a movie that you watched, critiqued and
then later on you kind of went back and realized
(09:04):
you made a mistake on And they said, absolutely, slap Shot.
He says. When we first saw Slap Shot, you know,
we gave it a thumbs down. Later on looked at
it closely and realized, you know, what a great film
that was. And now it's historically always in the top
ten of the best sports movies of all time.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And thanks to Greg Hengler as always for finding this
and doing the work he always does for us on
the producing and editing front. And by the way, again,
if you have not seen Slapshot, watch it with a family.
I mean, it is just great family entertainment and you
will laugh and then you'll just keep laughing.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You don't have to know hockey.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
The Love Slapshot Dave Hansen's story the story of one
of America's great sports movies.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Here on our American stores
Host
Lee Habeeb
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