August 10, 2022 • 26 mins
Former professional hockey player and actor Dave Hanson joins Ron Barr to talk about his life and career. Hanson played 33 games in the NHL (1978-1980) and 103 games World Hockey Association (1977-1979). While originally cast as "Dave 'Killer' Carlson" in the 1977 film Slap Shot, he was recast as "Jack Hanson" when Jack Carlson was unable to perform because his team was in the playoffs. Actor Jerry Houser was then cast as "Killer", the character based on Dave Hanson. Hanson appeared in several other films, including for the 2002 sequel Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Ron Bar and this is today's edition of
Ron Bars Sports Byline USA podcast on the eight Side Network.
Dave Hanson joins US on Sports Byline. Over a ten
year pro hockey career, he played thirty three games in
the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings and Minnesota North Stars,
and a hundred and three games in the World Hockey
Association with the New England Whalers, the Minnesota Fighting Saints,
(00:23):
and the Birmingham Bulls. He also spent a lot of
time in the Miners, playing with teams in places like Johnstown, Hampton, Toledo, Indianapolis,
Oklahoma City, and at Aarondack. And one of the all
time great sports movies, of course, is the classic slap
shot about a minor league hockey team, the Charlestown Chiefs,
starring Paul Newman. But no one can forget the Hanson Brothers,
(00:44):
and Dave Hanson was cast as Jack Hanson, one of
the Hanson brothers, and he appeared in several other films
along with Steve Carlson and Jeff Carlson. For his part
in the sequel slap Shot to Breaking the Ice. When
you think about that movie and you've watched it, I'm
sure many times. What did you like or dislike about
the movie, Dave, Well, quite frankly, it wasn't anything I disliked.
(01:08):
You know. I can remember the first time I did
see it, which of all places, at Yale University, which
was the uh the School of Liberal Arts there that
George roy Hill, our director supported strongly, so he chose
to have the the premier there at Yale University. You know,
when we sat there in that in that theater of
(01:29):
of throunded by professors and their and their wives and
other collegian administrators, the only people that seemed to be
laughing were the the the actors and the people from
the movie. They are actually part of the movie. So
it kind of struck me a little strange that that
was thinking, jeez, this is the way this movie is
(01:50):
going to be, uh, be received amongst all the viewers. Um.
But but after everything went out, you know, and the
movie went out, obviously it was it was a great
hit and a lot of people had a lot of
laugh So there really wasn't nuting I didn't like about it. Uh.
You know what I liked about it was that every
time I see it, like you said, I've seen it
(02:10):
probably not as many as most people, but but more
than some that I laughed every time I see it.
One of the things that I liked about A Dave
is that I thought it caught the culture of minor
league hockey. Now, you know how Hollywood can be, They
can go overboard about certain things, but when you think
collectively of the players of the franchise and the minor
leagues of the little towns, that they reflect and representing everything,
(02:34):
I thought it caught that real. Well how close was
it to reality from a guy that played the game
of hockey, Well, I can tell you it's more fact
in fiction. You know, pretty much everything I went on
in that film, well, especially the hockey scene, with the
exception of the strip tease, really happened, and it really
happened to the team I was playing with and the
league I was playing in at the time. Nancy Dowd,
(02:56):
who wrote this wrote the film, wrote the script for
the film, was a sister of one of the hockey
players that were playing with at the time, and and
she literally came out and watched her play and and
then from from that point on would receive cape recordings
of things that went on during the season. From her
brother Ned and so you know, all the almost all
(03:16):
the characters and all the activity and actions that went
on the foundation for was the way things were and
the thing that happened in that league. So you couldn't
get you couldn't get a more accurate portrayal of minor
league hockey at that time. Um. And of course, like
you said, I had a little bit of a Hollywood
spin on it, but the basics company was that's the
(03:38):
way it was. That Charleston. What city did you guys
shoot the film in, Well, it was Johnstown, Pennsylvania. So again, uh,
you know, she just she just took the name a
little bit and and fictionalized it and turned it into
Charlestown intaid of Johnstown. But you know it was Johnstown
at that time was a steel mill town where the
(03:58):
steel workers were trying to get laid off and the
hard times are coming. And uh, and that team that
we had there in john Town is what you saw
in the movie. You know, it's interesting you bring that
up because I could tell that it was a steel town.
And when you think about and I've said this many
times on the air, Dave, I think teams take on
the personality of the cities that they represent. I think
(04:20):
of the Pittsburgh Steelers being kind of a blue collar
type of town, and I really felt that the Chiefs
did reflect the personality of the town, which was actually,
as you said, not Charleston. But did it take on
the personality of the of the city. Oh. Absolutely. You
know what a neat thing about Johnstown is it was
a blue collar town steel where steel workers, coal miners
(04:43):
and and uh. And the team that we had was really,
you know, not there was no real superstars. There was
a bunch of hard working, plugging guys willing to go
into corners, get their noses dirty, and and fight for
every piece of that night that they could get. And
so we were, you know, we were a city that,
even though the mills were shutting down and people were
(05:05):
having a hard time trying to figure out what to
do with this this questionnaire dollar, if they had any uh,
what we had going on there in Johnstown on the
ice was something that they thought it was worthy of
spending their dollar. And they'd come out and drink your
Iron City beers and and get their shot to bourman
and whiskey and uh and and watch us play some
some hard nose hockey. How hard was it for a
(05:27):
non actor, meaning an athlete, to play an acting role. Well,
it started a little difficult for us. You know, you
have to nail on the head. We were athletes. Never
never act, at least I know Stephen Jeff never did.
I did some acting in high school, you know too,
that musicals and things like that, but nothing at a
professional level. So so when we first got the scripted
(05:51):
lines that we were supposed to read and and try
to do it nationally in front of a camera. When
George right Hill said action, certainly didn't come out smooth
it and it came out mechanical and really stupid looking.
So to the credit of George ray Hill and Noman
and a few of the other professionals, they kind of
got to the play where and say, hey, look at guys.
(06:11):
You know this is your arena, this is this is
should be something that's national to you. Guys you'r hockey player.
Just be hockey players. So you know, here's the scene,
here's the set up, here's the lines we'd like you
to say, but you know, do what you think would
come natural. So once we got got that put into
uh put into our minds, we kind of started playing
(06:32):
with it a little bit more and became a little
more relaxed and did a lot of ad living until
the combination of you know, the great lines that Nancy
Dowd had scripted for us, and the ad living in
the direction George ray Hill, it just came off as
real natural stuff. You know what impressed me the most, uh,
I won't say a lot, is that Paul Newman came
off so well. And usually when you have a dominant
(06:53):
actor like that, you're never sure whether they're going to
overwhelm the movie or not. And then to do somebody
something athlete, especially for a lot of people that watch
a movie that maybe played hockey, they can pick apart
that never happens or you know, you don't do that
when you're playing hockey. I thought he did a very
authentic job. Well, he did a terrific job. And that's
(07:14):
one of the one of the difficulties that they had
originally when they were looking to cast the film was
trying to find the hockey players are all right, let
me say again, trying to find actors that could play
hockey players and play on the ice and look like
girl hockey players other than Michael an Keen. You know,
the rest of the group that they had out there,
(07:34):
the professional actors were really high level hockey players. You know,
they said, I amateur hockey here and there. Uh. But
you know, the deal with Paul Nomo was Paul skated
as a youngster Ohio growing up, and he never skated
with a hockey stick in his hand. So, you know,
he was a fifty one years old, he was a
fit as a fiddle and an athletic, had had a
(07:55):
lot of athleticism the bottom, but he didn't you put
a hockey stick in your hand, and and and it
would be a little difficult. So to his credit, and
this is probably, you know, one of the reasons why
we had such a great relationship off the screen and
how well it came across on the screen. To his credit,
he would come to us and say, hey, guys, okay,
you know what would a hockey player do here? How
(08:15):
do I handle this stick there? And blah blah blah.
And so we would show him a couple of things,
and he had worked his tail off till he mastered it,
at least fall enough to make a look at on
look at on a camera. So he did a great
job and came across screen really really well. Dave Hanson
is with us and we're talking about the sports movie
Classic Slap Shot, in which he was a part of it.
(08:36):
Everybody knows the hands and brothers. I would also think,
like shooting a football movie that has such a collision
and action in and hockey being the same thing that
once they were rolling and you started playing, it was
hard to almost curtail the physicality so you didn't hurt
one of the fellow skaters or actors. Well, you had
to be a little careful with the actors. But you
(08:58):
know what, the pro hockey players and a lot of
the uh, the real action scenes that we shot, the
fast action hockey scenes that we shot was against the
other teams were all hockey players, you know, the vast
majority of them. And so you know, you can play
real hockey and hit out there and and uh and
make it look, you know, look the way it's supposed
(09:18):
to look without really hurting anybody. But you know, there
was an occasional slipcare an elbow there where someone could
get caught, get bloody nose, or split a cheek open,
and uh, you know, one of the parts where we
did when when Newman ends up hit into the boards
by ogol Oglethorpe. Uh, there were some great concerns about
(09:38):
how they could do it and make sure that he
did not get hurt. You know, I think everybody except
for Paul Newman and the hockey players were concerned because
you know, we knew how to do it. We could
do all right, make it look right. That's the way
it finally came off. We've got about thirty seconds before
we have to break here, Dave. But I thought the
other actors and the other roles like the owner and
(09:59):
all so, the broadcaster and everything. It really added to
the whole horror of that movie. Did it not? Well?
It certainly dead And again, you know, keep it in
mind when I said earlier that this movie was based
more in fact and fiction. The the owner of the team,
Joe McGrath, was portrayed after Uh, the owner of our
(10:19):
team then, which was Johnny Mitchell. And you know, he
was a very character kind of a guy himself, and
real life. Struther did an outstanding job of portraying him
and firing off some of the old lines that Johnny
Mitchell would do. And the same thing with the sportscaster.
He was kind of a takeoff of the local sportscaster
(10:40):
in Johnstown. Oh War a war a wig and uh,
it was quite a character himself. The vocal guys did
a great job. Dave Hanson is with us, will continue
talking about the infamous movie. I guess you could say that,
but certainly it was one of the special classic movies Slapshot.
As we continue on Sports Byline, you're listening to Ron
Bars Sports igh Line US, a podcast. Dave Hanson has
(11:02):
joined us on Sports Byline. One of the Hanson brothers
in the classic hockey movie Slap Shot. Let me go
back to where you grew up. You grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota.
You started football, baseball, and basketball, but you continued playing
hockey for the St. Paul Vaalkins and for her Brooks
at the University of Minnesota. How did you choose hockey
over the other two sports? Well, it's it's uh, it's
(11:28):
kind of a strange story. I mean, actually, hockey, out
of the three sports I played, which was football, baseball,
and hockey, you know, hockey was the least was the
lease of the three, although I loved all three sports,
but probably the sport I played the most because the
winners were long, you know in Minnesota, whereas the fall
and the spring seasons for baseball football were short. So uh,
(11:51):
you know, played all three and growing up in high school,
and my intention was to really accept with scholarship to
play collegian football, but I had my senior year, had
an action is flattened in the second base toward my ankle,
which really prevented me from running as well as I
could for football, and and so really, uh, you had.
(12:12):
I ended up having her Brooks come knocking on my door.
And every I would say everybody, I would say, the
vast majority of every chip growing up in Minnesota. It's
an athlete, you know, wants to be a goal and
golfer for for the University of Minnesota. So where her
became knocking on my door and said, day, we'd like
to have you be a golfer and play hockey for me.
(12:32):
You know, I just couldn't turn it down, So you
know that's what I grabbed ahold of him and went
in that direction. You know you mentioned about her Brooks,
her of course passing away, but when I think about
what he did with that hockey team up in Lake Placid. Uh,
what type of coach was he? Because everybody I've never
met him, but everybody that I talked to said he
(12:53):
was an exacting coach, but he was somebody that understood
the talents and the personalities of all the players that
played for him. Was that a fair depiction of him? Yeah,
I think it really is. You know, you're gonna you
could argue his techniques that he used to bring the
best out of each player individually and then to bring
the best out of a player and put those players
(13:16):
together as a team, but you can't argue the results.
And and that's that's the kind of you know, the
guy that Herb was. He was honest, uh to a
fault and uh and he was brutal at times, but
he was but he was there to put a pack
of your pat on the back when you deserved it.
(13:37):
But at the same time, you know that hitch over
the hand with a hockey stick if you deserve that
as well. But ultimately, the results that he produced and
the development that he would have a player go through
and become the best player he could be, you know,
there was no arguments there. And even though unfortunately for myself,
(13:57):
I made the decision after about a year and a
half of her Brooks to take another attraction. Uh. You know,
my time with her work was valuable time and we
became extremely close friends over the years. What was that
different track you decided to take. Well, I decided to
leave college hockey and jump back into juniors with the
(14:18):
desire to uh kind of go pro instead of spent
four years to go pro in two years, and unfortunately
it worked out for me. Uh. You know, I as
I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, you know, looking
back and and end of the sun that spent four
years at a high level universe playing collegiate hockey, and
get a real good feel what that was for. You know,
(14:40):
I look back and I don't have any regrets, but
but at the same time, I often think I wish
I would have stuck it out four years and had
the collegiate experience and also had the opportunity to be
under Herb's wing for four years. Dave. I know, when
I've talked to college football players and asked him once
they go up to the National Football League what they
noticed as the big different and they all tell me
(15:00):
the same thing. The speed of the game now you
know as well as I do at the college level,
you don't have the open physicality, the fights, those sort
of things at the college level that you find at
the professional level as well. What did you find is
the major difference and how hard was it for you
to adapt to that next level? Well, the major difference
(15:21):
for me simply was strength. You know, everybody is strong
up there. You know, when I turned pro was twenty
years old, still mature, um, and so the strength of
these players is uh much more than than a young
twenty year old. Uh. And then the speed, you know,
the speed is exceptional. You know, it's it takes you
(15:45):
a while to adapt to that speed and get up
to that level. But you know, if you want to
play at that level, you have to do that. So
the combination of those two things moren't anything. And then
the everything was you know, compared to amateur versus professional
at least at the collegiate level or even the junior
level of that time is you're playing eighty plus games.
You know, you get in the playoffs and you're almost
(16:06):
playing a hundred games if not more in the season.
So you know, that's that's a toll that takes on
its bond your body and on your mind and everything else.
So it's a major adjustment. And uh so for an athlete,
at at least nowadays, to be twenty years old, it's
even twenty one years old, and to jump right into
the NHL, that athlete had to be an exceptional athlete,
(16:27):
not only talent wise, spe physically and maturity. Did the
up and down nature of your career over ten years
playing you know, as I said, thirty three games in
the NHL and then a hundred and three in the
w h A did that take a toll as well?
How does emotionally a player deal with that? How did
you deal with it? Well, I love the sport, you know,
I just I didn't want to do anything to play hockey,
(16:49):
and I just love playing hockey, So, you know, emotionally
it wasn't tough at all. I just couldn't wait for
the next day to come so I could either get
on the ice and practice or or play a hockey game.
So you know more, she I just loved it. It
was I was doing what I love to do and
I didn't want to do anything else. Physically, it takes
a toll. You know, when you're young, you can survive
(17:09):
almost anything and get through it, no matter what the
injuries are, no matter you know, how run down you feel.
But you know, after four or five six years of that,
suddenly you know you're waking up a few more aches
and pains. And if you're lucky enough not to have
to have any major surgeries on your knees or any
other parts of your body, you kind of get through that.
(17:29):
But you know, for me, you know, players are different
kinds of players. You have to you have the physical
players that have to put that play hard every night
and go into corners and bang the bodies. And then
you've got what you would consider the highly skilled players
that don't necessarily do the dirty work. And she kind
of dance around things. So I was a physical player,
and uh, you know how I was a fighter. Uh
(17:51):
and you know, and my my game was taken bodies
and hitting people heard. So you know when my tents
here after finishing my tests, you're a pro. I was
banging up quite a bit to the play where I
just finally said, you know, I don't think the body
can take it any longer and I want to get
out with some respectability to my health. And they made
a decision, and I was part of the decision to
(18:12):
go out a game so I could continue to be
healthy for a while. You know, I've talked to a
lot of pro hockey players and I really admire them.
First of all, their excellent interviews, and also they have
a passion for the game. I don't see them as
I see, uh say, baseball players or football players. There's
something about that passion and that love for the game.
Help me with a Dave, Why is that as collectively
(18:33):
hockey players are like that. Well, it's a it's a culture. Uh.
You know, hockey has got a great culture. And you
find that if you look through the years, the majority
of players usually come from small towns. Uh. You know,
they've they've played this sport all their life. Uh. It's
a generation thing where you know, their coaches are usually uh,
(18:56):
disciplinary and type coaches. They they had to make you
stand the game, not only how to play it, but
the tradition behind it. And and it's just a passion. Uh.
You know, the players that move on are passionate about it. Now. Uh,
the game has changed a bit with the European influence
and and the amount of money that the players are
now making making nowadays, but I think you still the
(19:19):
majority of the players played because they love the sport
of the game and and the money aspects of it
are secretary to it. When you take a look at
the movie Slap Shot and you think back, I know,
having been on a couple of sets in my career,
there's always a lot of funny things that happened, and
I see that especially in the sports movies. What was
that in the case of that movie. Well, you keep
(19:40):
in mind, you had at least i'll speak for the
three handsome brothers, you know, you had. You got guys
that are in ninety one years old that typically spend
the summertime going off and playing softball and drinking beer
and just relax and having fun. Now all of a sudden,
we're on a movie set, and you know, we have
to be up at six and morning, get through makeup,
(20:02):
and then literally can sit there all day long until six, seven,
eight o'clock at night, and nobody ever got around to,
uh filming your part of the film that you're supposed
to be doing that day. So you know, those days
got a little long just sitting around. So uh, certainly
it wasn't something that we were used to doing and
didn't want to do, so, you know, a little mischievous
(20:23):
devils that we were just by nature. It was an
opportunity for us to kind of get out and start
posting some pranks on a few people that were unsuspecting.
And then the fun part about it is Paul Newman
jumped right in with both Steed and we would start
off pulling a few jokes here and there and him
and on him, and then he would he would reciprocate
and kind and made for a lot of fun times
(20:44):
during the downtime. When you take a look back at
that movie, what does it mean to you and how
close was it to what the what you were like
and what the Hanson brothers were like. Well, yeah, to
answer your second question first, I mean it was right
on the tea the way the Carlson others and Dave
Hanson more um in real life. You know, Jeff Jack
(21:04):
and Steve Carlson, who the Handsome brothers portrayed were big, tough,
long haired more the black rim safety glasses. Uh. And
then Dave Killer Carlson the movie, which was kind of
the character written after me, Dave Killer hands and you
know that that year I was a rookie and and
I think I led the league or close and led
the league in telling minutes and fights, so you know
(21:28):
all those parts. Uh really we're close to the way
and we really were. And then you know what a
looking back on the movie and what do I think
of it? It was just the time that you know,
at that time, it was saved. We want to make
a movie and get paid five six, seven thousand dollars
and get free food and all the beer we can drink. Yeah,
(21:49):
why not? What else are we gonna do this summer?
But never had any any idea at all that it
would turn into the kind of thing that it is nowadays,
where it hasn't died. It just continues to grow up
popular and it's it's all over the world. And let
me tell you, anyone who wants to have a Handsome
Brothers classic Charlestown Chiefs hockey Jersey warned during the filming
(22:09):
of Slapshot can check out Classic Auctions at www. Classic
auctions dot net. Tell me about that, Dave, Well, that's
kind of a little quick funny story there is that
the Handsome Brothers for the last twenty some years continued
to be asked to uh, come two different parts of
the country, even different parts of the world to help
(22:30):
raise money or for some charitable or needy cause. And
and so we've been traveling around doing that and just recently,
you think it's as strange as itself. We were sitting
in the locker room after a charity hockey game. The
three of us were talking and we just kind of
stumbled across the conversation of what memorability do we have
from the movie? And we all surprised themselves by realizing
(22:50):
that we still had our original blue Chief jersey that
we wore in the movie. And uh, it was like, well, Dave,
were you know, where's yours jersey? Pat I said, well,
you know, mine's sitting in a box in the corner
of my garage. And you know, Steve and Jeff was
kind of similar. It's like, well, what do you think
we should do with them? What do we plan on
do with them? It's kind of like, well, I don't know,
they mid sitting for thirty some years. I don't know
(23:11):
what deck we should do him. And we said, well,
maybe there's somebody out there in the world that's a
big fan that would enjoy having these jerseys a lot.
More we would. So we hooked up with the Classic
Auctions out of Montreal and talked to Mark Juneau there
and he said, yeah, you know, we'll put them up
for auction and see if we can find somebody that's
willing to to pay for him and enjoy them. And
(23:33):
that's that's where there right now. Dave, when you think
back on your career, is there a particular moment that
kind of sticks with you that when you kind of
reflect on it, it means an awful lot To Dave Hanson,
I wouldn't say ron that there's a moment. I would
just say that in my ten years, I look back
and I think, you know, I reflected where I grew up,
you know, which was you know, an inner city, small
(23:55):
high school. You know, we literally built our hockey rank
ourselves and thought of at that and playing and into
our ring till I was a junior in high school.
And then to think, you know, coming from from those
routes to playing with and against great hockey players like
Bobby Are, Bobby Hall, Gordie Howe, Frank Mohammedan, you know,
just the the undeniable greats of the game. Uh, you know,
(24:20):
that is just more than than I would ever ever
in my Wallace dream have sucked that it was going
to happen to Dave Hanson. I just feel so blessed
because of it. And when you think about those great players,
what is it that they consistently always did in order
to become great in hockey? Well, they just had a
passion for the game, you know. I mean that's the
one thing that I shared is you know, you'd take
(24:40):
a look at Gordy Howe and he played well into
his early fifties. Well, you don't do that unless you
love the game. And and you know, you just saw it.
They wore that, they wore that their heart on their
sleeves when they played. You know, Bobby Hall, I played
against Bobby Are his last game. Uh, he was a
black Hawk. I I got the opportunity to play against
(25:01):
him when I was like to Detroy wed Wings, and
I just sat and marveled on on the bench watching
him the things he could do on the ice, And
then come to find out that that was his last
hockey game because he felt that he couldn't play to
the standard that he was used to because his knees
were so bad. And I thought, oh my gosh, you know,
he was just doing great things there. So you know,
(25:22):
these guys just played with a passion that is unmatched
by by anybody else yet uh yet self by everybody
else that played the game during that time. Dave, I
want to thank you for your time and talking about
this great classic sports movie slap Shot, and also about
your career as well. You put a human face on
what it was like to be a professional hockey player
during that period of time. You were welcome here anytime.
(25:45):
Take care days well, but the pressures online. I appreciate it,
and I hopefully get a chance to talk again. Dave
Hanson with us on Sports Byline. We continue with America's
sports talk show. You have been listening to Ron Bars
Sports Byline US, a podcast on the eight Side Network.
Hi, I'm Ron Bar and this is today's edition of
Ron Bars Sports Byline USA podcast on the eight Side Network.
Dave Hanson joins US on Sports Byline. Over a ten
year pro hockey career, he played thirty three games in
the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings and Minnesota North Stars,
and a hundred and three games in the World Hockey
Association with the New England Whalers, the Minnesota Fighting Saints,
(00:23):
and the Birmingham Bulls. He also spent a lot of
time in the Miners, playing with teams in places like Johnstown, Hampton, Toledo, Indianapolis,
Oklahoma City, and at Aarondack. And one of the all
time great sports movies, of course, is the classic slap
shot about a minor league hockey team, the Charlestown Chiefs,
starring Paul Newman. But no one can forget the Hanson Brothers,
(00:44):
and Dave Hanson was cast as Jack Hanson, one of
the Hanson brothers, and he appeared in several other films
along with Steve Carlson and Jeff Carlson. For his part
in the sequel slap Shot to Breaking the Ice. When
you think about that movie and you've watched it, I'm
sure many times. What did you like or dislike about
the movie, Dave, Well, quite frankly, it wasn't anything I disliked.
(01:08):
You know. I can remember the first time I did
see it, which of all places, at Yale University, which
was the uh the School of Liberal Arts there that
George roy Hill, our director supported strongly, so he chose
to have the the premier there at Yale University. You know,
when we sat there in that in that theater of
(01:29):
of throunded by professors and their and their wives and
other collegian administrators, the only people that seemed to be
laughing were the the the actors and the people from
the movie. They are actually part of the movie. So
it kind of struck me a little strange that that
was thinking, jeez, this is the way this movie is
(01:50):
going to be, uh, be received amongst all the viewers. Um.
But but after everything went out, you know, and the
movie went out, obviously it was it was a great
hit and a lot of people had a lot of
laugh So there really wasn't nuting I didn't like about it. Uh.
You know what I liked about it was that every
time I see it, like you said, I've seen it
(02:10):
probably not as many as most people, but but more
than some that I laughed every time I see it.
One of the things that I liked about A Dave
is that I thought it caught the culture of minor
league hockey. Now, you know how Hollywood can be, They
can go overboard about certain things, but when you think
collectively of the players of the franchise and the minor
leagues of the little towns, that they reflect and representing everything,
(02:34):
I thought it caught that real. Well how close was
it to reality from a guy that played the game
of hockey, Well, I can tell you it's more fact
in fiction. You know, pretty much everything I went on
in that film, well, especially the hockey scene, with the
exception of the strip tease, really happened, and it really
happened to the team I was playing with and the
league I was playing in at the time. Nancy Dowd,
(02:56):
who wrote this wrote the film, wrote the script for
the film, was a sister of one of the hockey
players that were playing with at the time, and and
she literally came out and watched her play and and
then from from that point on would receive cape recordings
of things that went on during the season. From her
brother Ned and so you know, all the almost all
(03:16):
the characters and all the activity and actions that went
on the foundation for was the way things were and
the thing that happened in that league. So you couldn't
get you couldn't get a more accurate portrayal of minor
league hockey at that time. Um. And of course, like
you said, I had a little bit of a Hollywood
spin on it, but the basics company was that's the
(03:38):
way it was. That Charleston. What city did you guys
shoot the film in, Well, it was Johnstown, Pennsylvania. So again, uh,
you know, she just she just took the name a
little bit and and fictionalized it and turned it into
Charlestown intaid of Johnstown. But you know it was Johnstown
at that time was a steel mill town where the
(03:58):
steel workers were trying to get laid off and the
hard times are coming. And uh, and that team that
we had there in john Town is what you saw
in the movie. You know, it's interesting you bring that
up because I could tell that it was a steel town.
And when you think about and I've said this many
times on the air, Dave, I think teams take on
the personality of the cities that they represent. I think
(04:20):
of the Pittsburgh Steelers being kind of a blue collar
type of town, and I really felt that the Chiefs
did reflect the personality of the town, which was actually,
as you said, not Charleston. But did it take on
the personality of the of the city. Oh. Absolutely. You
know what a neat thing about Johnstown is it was
a blue collar town steel where steel workers, coal miners
(04:43):
and and uh. And the team that we had was really,
you know, not there was no real superstars. There was
a bunch of hard working, plugging guys willing to go
into corners, get their noses dirty, and and fight for
every piece of that night that they could get. And
so we were, you know, we were a city that,
even though the mills were shutting down and people were
(05:05):
having a hard time trying to figure out what to
do with this this questionnaire dollar, if they had any uh,
what we had going on there in Johnstown on the
ice was something that they thought it was worthy of
spending their dollar. And they'd come out and drink your
Iron City beers and and get their shot to bourman
and whiskey and uh and and watch us play some
some hard nose hockey. How hard was it for a
(05:27):
non actor, meaning an athlete, to play an acting role. Well,
it started a little difficult for us. You know, you
have to nail on the head. We were athletes. Never
never act, at least I know Stephen Jeff never did.
I did some acting in high school, you know too,
that musicals and things like that, but nothing at a
professional level. So so when we first got the scripted
(05:51):
lines that we were supposed to read and and try
to do it nationally in front of a camera. When
George right Hill said action, certainly didn't come out smooth
it and it came out mechanical and really stupid looking.
So to the credit of George ray Hill and Noman
and a few of the other professionals, they kind of
got to the play where and say, hey, look at guys.
(06:11):
You know this is your arena, this is this is
should be something that's national to you. Guys you'r hockey player.
Just be hockey players. So you know, here's the scene,
here's the set up, here's the lines we'd like you
to say, but you know, do what you think would
come natural. So once we got got that put into
uh put into our minds, we kind of started playing
(06:32):
with it a little bit more and became a little
more relaxed and did a lot of ad living until
the combination of you know, the great lines that Nancy
Dowd had scripted for us, and the ad living in
the direction George ray Hill, it just came off as
real natural stuff. You know what impressed me the most, uh,
I won't say a lot, is that Paul Newman came
off so well. And usually when you have a dominant
(06:53):
actor like that, you're never sure whether they're going to
overwhelm the movie or not. And then to do somebody
something athlete, especially for a lot of people that watch
a movie that maybe played hockey, they can pick apart
that never happens or you know, you don't do that
when you're playing hockey. I thought he did a very
authentic job. Well, he did a terrific job. And that's
(07:14):
one of the one of the difficulties that they had
originally when they were looking to cast the film was
trying to find the hockey players are all right, let
me say again, trying to find actors that could play
hockey players and play on the ice and look like
girl hockey players other than Michael an Keen. You know,
the rest of the group that they had out there,
(07:34):
the professional actors were really high level hockey players. You know,
they said, I amateur hockey here and there. Uh. But
you know, the deal with Paul Nomo was Paul skated
as a youngster Ohio growing up, and he never skated
with a hockey stick in his hand. So, you know,
he was a fifty one years old, he was a
fit as a fiddle and an athletic, had had a
(07:55):
lot of athleticism the bottom, but he didn't you put
a hockey stick in your hand, and and and it
would be a little difficult. So to his credit, and
this is probably, you know, one of the reasons why
we had such a great relationship off the screen and
how well it came across on the screen. To his credit,
he would come to us and say, hey, guys, okay,
you know what would a hockey player do here? How
(08:15):
do I handle this stick there? And blah blah blah.
And so we would show him a couple of things,
and he had worked his tail off till he mastered it,
at least fall enough to make a look at on
look at on a camera. So he did a great
job and came across screen really really well. Dave Hanson
is with us and we're talking about the sports movie
Classic Slap Shot, in which he was a part of it.
(08:36):
Everybody knows the hands and brothers. I would also think,
like shooting a football movie that has such a collision
and action in and hockey being the same thing that
once they were rolling and you started playing, it was
hard to almost curtail the physicality so you didn't hurt
one of the fellow skaters or actors. Well, you had
to be a little careful with the actors. But you
(08:58):
know what, the pro hockey players and a lot of
the uh, the real action scenes that we shot, the
fast action hockey scenes that we shot was against the
other teams were all hockey players, you know, the vast
majority of them. And so you know, you can play
real hockey and hit out there and and uh and
make it look, you know, look the way it's supposed
(09:18):
to look without really hurting anybody. But you know, there
was an occasional slipcare an elbow there where someone could
get caught, get bloody nose, or split a cheek open,
and uh, you know, one of the parts where we
did when when Newman ends up hit into the boards
by ogol Oglethorpe. Uh, there were some great concerns about
(09:38):
how they could do it and make sure that he
did not get hurt. You know, I think everybody except
for Paul Newman and the hockey players were concerned because
you know, we knew how to do it. We could
do all right, make it look right. That's the way
it finally came off. We've got about thirty seconds before
we have to break here, Dave. But I thought the
other actors and the other roles like the owner and
(09:59):
all so, the broadcaster and everything. It really added to
the whole horror of that movie. Did it not? Well?
It certainly dead And again, you know, keep it in
mind when I said earlier that this movie was based
more in fact and fiction. The the owner of the team,
Joe McGrath, was portrayed after Uh, the owner of our
(10:19):
team then, which was Johnny Mitchell. And you know, he
was a very character kind of a guy himself, and
real life. Struther did an outstanding job of portraying him
and firing off some of the old lines that Johnny
Mitchell would do. And the same thing with the sportscaster.
He was kind of a takeoff of the local sportscaster
(10:40):
in Johnstown. Oh War a war a wig and uh,
it was quite a character himself. The vocal guys did
a great job. Dave Hanson is with us, will continue
talking about the infamous movie. I guess you could say that,
but certainly it was one of the special classic movies Slapshot.
As we continue on Sports Byline, you're listening to Ron
Bars Sports igh Line US, a podcast. Dave Hanson has
(11:02):
joined us on Sports Byline. One of the Hanson brothers
in the classic hockey movie Slap Shot. Let me go
back to where you grew up. You grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota.
You started football, baseball, and basketball, but you continued playing
hockey for the St. Paul Vaalkins and for her Brooks
at the University of Minnesota. How did you choose hockey
over the other two sports? Well, it's it's uh, it's
(11:28):
kind of a strange story. I mean, actually, hockey, out
of the three sports I played, which was football, baseball,
and hockey, you know, hockey was the least was the
lease of the three, although I loved all three sports,
but probably the sport I played the most because the
winners were long, you know in Minnesota, whereas the fall
and the spring seasons for baseball football were short. So uh,
(11:51):
you know, played all three and growing up in high school,
and my intention was to really accept with scholarship to
play collegian football, but I had my senior year, had
an action is flattened in the second base toward my ankle,
which really prevented me from running as well as I
could for football, and and so really, uh, you had.
(12:12):
I ended up having her Brooks come knocking on my door.
And every I would say everybody, I would say, the
vast majority of every chip growing up in Minnesota. It's
an athlete, you know, wants to be a goal and
golfer for for the University of Minnesota. So where her
became knocking on my door and said, day, we'd like
to have you be a golfer and play hockey for me.
(12:32):
You know, I just couldn't turn it down, So you
know that's what I grabbed ahold of him and went
in that direction. You know you mentioned about her Brooks,
her of course passing away, but when I think about
what he did with that hockey team up in Lake Placid. Uh,
what type of coach was he? Because everybody I've never
met him, but everybody that I talked to said he
(12:53):
was an exacting coach, but he was somebody that understood
the talents and the personalities of all the players that
played for him. Was that a fair depiction of him? Yeah,
I think it really is. You know, you're gonna you
could argue his techniques that he used to bring the
best out of each player individually and then to bring
the best out of a player and put those players
(13:16):
together as a team, but you can't argue the results.
And and that's that's the kind of you know, the
guy that Herb was. He was honest, uh to a
fault and uh and he was brutal at times, but
he was but he was there to put a pack
of your pat on the back when you deserved it.
(13:37):
But at the same time, you know that hitch over
the hand with a hockey stick if you deserve that
as well. But ultimately, the results that he produced and
the development that he would have a player go through
and become the best player he could be, you know,
there was no arguments there. And even though unfortunately for myself,
(13:57):
I made the decision after about a year and a
half of her Brooks to take another attraction. Uh. You know,
my time with her work was valuable time and we
became extremely close friends over the years. What was that
different track you decided to take. Well, I decided to
leave college hockey and jump back into juniors with the
(14:18):
desire to uh kind of go pro instead of spent
four years to go pro in two years, and unfortunately
it worked out for me. Uh. You know, I as
I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, you know, looking
back and and end of the sun that spent four
years at a high level universe playing collegiate hockey, and
get a real good feel what that was for. You know,
(14:40):
I look back and I don't have any regrets, but
but at the same time, I often think I wish
I would have stuck it out four years and had
the collegiate experience and also had the opportunity to be
under Herb's wing for four years. Dave. I know, when
I've talked to college football players and asked him once
they go up to the National Football League what they
noticed as the big different and they all tell me
(15:00):
the same thing. The speed of the game now you
know as well as I do at the college level,
you don't have the open physicality, the fights, those sort
of things at the college level that you find at
the professional level as well. What did you find is
the major difference and how hard was it for you
to adapt to that next level? Well, the major difference
(15:21):
for me simply was strength. You know, everybody is strong
up there. You know, when I turned pro was twenty
years old, still mature, um, and so the strength of
these players is uh much more than than a young
twenty year old. Uh. And then the speed, you know,
the speed is exceptional. You know, it's it takes you
(15:45):
a while to adapt to that speed and get up
to that level. But you know, if you want to
play at that level, you have to do that. So
the combination of those two things moren't anything. And then
the everything was you know, compared to amateur versus professional
at least at the collegiate level or even the junior
level of that time is you're playing eighty plus games.
You know, you get in the playoffs and you're almost
(16:06):
playing a hundred games if not more in the season.
So you know, that's that's a toll that takes on
its bond your body and on your mind and everything else.
So it's a major adjustment. And uh so for an athlete,
at at least nowadays, to be twenty years old, it's
even twenty one years old, and to jump right into
the NHL, that athlete had to be an exceptional athlete,
(16:27):
not only talent wise, spe physically and maturity. Did the
up and down nature of your career over ten years
playing you know, as I said, thirty three games in
the NHL and then a hundred and three in the
w h A did that take a toll as well?
How does emotionally a player deal with that? How did
you deal with it? Well, I love the sport, you know,
I just I didn't want to do anything to play hockey,
(16:49):
and I just love playing hockey, So, you know, emotionally
it wasn't tough at all. I just couldn't wait for
the next day to come so I could either get
on the ice and practice or or play a hockey game.
So you know more, she I just loved it. It
was I was doing what I love to do and
I didn't want to do anything else. Physically, it takes
a toll. You know, when you're young, you can survive
(17:09):
almost anything and get through it, no matter what the
injuries are, no matter you know, how run down you feel.
But you know, after four or five six years of that,
suddenly you know you're waking up a few more aches
and pains. And if you're lucky enough not to have
to have any major surgeries on your knees or any
other parts of your body, you kind of get through that.
(17:29):
But you know, for me, you know, players are different
kinds of players. You have to you have the physical
players that have to put that play hard every night
and go into corners and bang the bodies. And then
you've got what you would consider the highly skilled players
that don't necessarily do the dirty work. And she kind
of dance around things. So I was a physical player,
and uh, you know how I was a fighter. Uh
(17:51):
and you know, and my my game was taken bodies
and hitting people heard. So you know when my tents
here after finishing my tests, you're a pro. I was
banging up quite a bit to the play where I
just finally said, you know, I don't think the body
can take it any longer and I want to get
out with some respectability to my health. And they made
a decision, and I was part of the decision to
(18:12):
go out a game so I could continue to be
healthy for a while. You know, I've talked to a
lot of pro hockey players and I really admire them.
First of all, their excellent interviews, and also they have
a passion for the game. I don't see them as
I see, uh say, baseball players or football players. There's
something about that passion and that love for the game.
Help me with a Dave, Why is that as collectively
(18:33):
hockey players are like that. Well, it's a it's a culture. Uh.
You know, hockey has got a great culture. And you
find that if you look through the years, the majority
of players usually come from small towns. Uh. You know,
they've they've played this sport all their life. Uh. It's
a generation thing where you know, their coaches are usually uh,
(18:56):
disciplinary and type coaches. They they had to make you
stand the game, not only how to play it, but
the tradition behind it. And and it's just a passion. Uh.
You know, the players that move on are passionate about it. Now. Uh,
the game has changed a bit with the European influence
and and the amount of money that the players are
now making making nowadays, but I think you still the
(19:19):
majority of the players played because they love the sport
of the game and and the money aspects of it
are secretary to it. When you take a look at
the movie Slap Shot and you think back, I know,
having been on a couple of sets in my career,
there's always a lot of funny things that happened, and
I see that especially in the sports movies. What was
that in the case of that movie. Well, you keep
(19:40):
in mind, you had at least i'll speak for the
three handsome brothers, you know, you had. You got guys
that are in ninety one years old that typically spend
the summertime going off and playing softball and drinking beer
and just relax and having fun. Now all of a sudden,
we're on a movie set, and you know, we have
to be up at six and morning, get through makeup,
(20:02):
and then literally can sit there all day long until six, seven,
eight o'clock at night, and nobody ever got around to,
uh filming your part of the film that you're supposed
to be doing that day. So you know, those days
got a little long just sitting around. So uh, certainly
it wasn't something that we were used to doing and
didn't want to do, so, you know, a little mischievous
(20:23):
devils that we were just by nature. It was an
opportunity for us to kind of get out and start
posting some pranks on a few people that were unsuspecting.
And then the fun part about it is Paul Newman
jumped right in with both Steed and we would start
off pulling a few jokes here and there and him
and on him, and then he would he would reciprocate
and kind and made for a lot of fun times
(20:44):
during the downtime. When you take a look back at
that movie, what does it mean to you and how
close was it to what the what you were like
and what the Hanson brothers were like. Well, yeah, to
answer your second question first, I mean it was right
on the tea the way the Carlson others and Dave
Hanson more um in real life. You know, Jeff Jack
(21:04):
and Steve Carlson, who the Handsome brothers portrayed were big, tough,
long haired more the black rim safety glasses. Uh. And
then Dave Killer Carlson the movie, which was kind of
the character written after me, Dave Killer hands and you
know that that year I was a rookie and and
I think I led the league or close and led
the league in telling minutes and fights, so you know
(21:28):
all those parts. Uh really we're close to the way
and we really were. And then you know what a
looking back on the movie and what do I think
of it? It was just the time that you know,
at that time, it was saved. We want to make
a movie and get paid five six, seven thousand dollars
and get free food and all the beer we can drink. Yeah,
(21:49):
why not? What else are we gonna do this summer?
But never had any any idea at all that it
would turn into the kind of thing that it is nowadays,
where it hasn't died. It just continues to grow up
popular and it's it's all over the world. And let
me tell you, anyone who wants to have a Handsome
Brothers classic Charlestown Chiefs hockey Jersey warned during the filming
(22:09):
of Slapshot can check out Classic Auctions at www. Classic
auctions dot net. Tell me about that, Dave, Well, that's
kind of a little quick funny story there is that
the Handsome Brothers for the last twenty some years continued
to be asked to uh, come two different parts of
the country, even different parts of the world to help
(22:30):
raise money or for some charitable or needy cause. And
and so we've been traveling around doing that and just recently,
you think it's as strange as itself. We were sitting
in the locker room after a charity hockey game. The
three of us were talking and we just kind of
stumbled across the conversation of what memorability do we have
from the movie? And we all surprised themselves by realizing
(22:50):
that we still had our original blue Chief jersey that
we wore in the movie. And uh, it was like, well, Dave,
were you know, where's yours jersey? Pat I said, well,
you know, mine's sitting in a box in the corner
of my garage. And you know, Steve and Jeff was
kind of similar. It's like, well, what do you think
we should do with them? What do we plan on
do with them? It's kind of like, well, I don't know,
they mid sitting for thirty some years. I don't know
(23:11):
what deck we should do him. And we said, well,
maybe there's somebody out there in the world that's a
big fan that would enjoy having these jerseys a lot.
More we would. So we hooked up with the Classic
Auctions out of Montreal and talked to Mark Juneau there
and he said, yeah, you know, we'll put them up
for auction and see if we can find somebody that's
willing to to pay for him and enjoy them. And
(23:33):
that's that's where there right now. Dave, when you think
back on your career, is there a particular moment that
kind of sticks with you that when you kind of
reflect on it, it means an awful lot To Dave Hanson,
I wouldn't say ron that there's a moment. I would
just say that in my ten years, I look back
and I think, you know, I reflected where I grew up,
you know, which was you know, an inner city, small
(23:55):
high school. You know, we literally built our hockey rank
ourselves and thought of at that and playing and into
our ring till I was a junior in high school.
And then to think, you know, coming from from those
routes to playing with and against great hockey players like
Bobby Are, Bobby Hall, Gordie Howe, Frank Mohammedan, you know,
just the the undeniable greats of the game. Uh, you know,
(24:20):
that is just more than than I would ever ever
in my Wallace dream have sucked that it was going
to happen to Dave Hanson. I just feel so blessed
because of it. And when you think about those great players,
what is it that they consistently always did in order
to become great in hockey? Well, they just had a
passion for the game, you know. I mean that's the
one thing that I shared is you know, you'd take
(24:40):
a look at Gordy Howe and he played well into
his early fifties. Well, you don't do that unless you
love the game. And and you know, you just saw it.
They wore that, they wore that their heart on their
sleeves when they played. You know, Bobby Hall, I played
against Bobby Are his last game. Uh, he was a
black Hawk. I I got the opportunity to play against
(25:01):
him when I was like to Detroy wed Wings, and
I just sat and marveled on on the bench watching
him the things he could do on the ice, And
then come to find out that that was his last
hockey game because he felt that he couldn't play to
the standard that he was used to because his knees
were so bad. And I thought, oh my gosh, you know,
he was just doing great things there. So you know,
(25:22):
these guys just played with a passion that is unmatched
by by anybody else yet uh yet self by everybody
else that played the game during that time. Dave, I
want to thank you for your time and talking about
this great classic sports movie slap Shot, and also about
your career as well. You put a human face on
what it was like to be a professional hockey player
during that period of time. You were welcome here anytime.
(25:45):
Take care days well, but the pressures online. I appreciate it,
and I hopefully get a chance to talk again. Dave
Hanson with us on Sports Byline. We continue with America's
sports talk show. You have been listening to Ron Bars
Sports Byline US, a podcast on the eight Side Network.
Host
Ron Barr
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