As if the placement of the AHL’s Abbortsford Heat wasn’t crazy enough (depending on your point of view), or the fact that the city can barely afford to keep the team there, this event involving their head coach in a recent game has attracted a fair bit of attention:
I’m sure many are enjoying the irony of this guy’s name.
Oh dear.
As much as we’re a UK based website, and we’re glad that we get some sort of hockey fix outside of following the NHL, we can’t help but think that hockey in Britain is a complete joke. Never mind the fact that the low standard of play doesn‘t even compare to the ECHL, or for that matter pretty much any ice hockey league outside of Britain (not that this is our biggest complaint, we can deal with it), but the sport is treated like crap. It’s bastardised with elements of football (soccer) brought to games by the fans, and it’s tackied up to extremes with pathetic excuses of team logos, horrible jerseys, mostly irrelevant team names (because UK sports team owners suck at naming their sports teams), adverts plastered all over the jerseys, and completely dumb sounds being played during game stoppages.
And as if all of that wasn’t enough to make the game feel silly and tacky over here, this article, on the official website of the highest professional hockey league in the UK, takes the cake and eats it all up. I just couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw how horribly and unprofessionally it was written. Allcaps and excessive exclamation marks make me cringe.
For those who don’t quite get what the article is actually talking about with football and rugby games being cancelled, I’ll go into a little bit of detail here: basically, the UK had some of the worst snowfall we’ve seen in years. To be honest, it was only a couple of inches at the most, yet the whole country came to a complete standstill, with schools being closed, people buying at least 12 loafs of bread as part of their panic shops, and as the article above mentions, football and rugby games being cancelled. Makes us look quite wimpy compared to the likes of Canada and Russia – much like our hockey teams, oddly enough…
They were trying to advertise a GMB Nottingham Panthers game (Note how a sponsor now comes before the town name for some teams – that alone is beyond ridiculous. I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t write this about British ice hockey in general), and in my eyes they failed miserably. Sure, they have one of the largest fanbases in the UK as far as hockey goes, but the fact that the majority of people in this country don’t really know or care about hockey, added to the horrible writing of that article and the fact, like most teams, that they probably didn’t bother to properly advertise the game in any way, relying solely on word of mouth from fans, makes this quite an Epic Fail.
I’m Wildwing64, and this is Epic Fail number two.
Welcome to Epic Fail, the new PowerPlayGoal.com section that ignores all the glory and teary eyed victories to focus on one thing – Failure.
What happens when, some movie execs run short on ideas, money and decide one drunken night to once again re-animate the corpses careers of the Hansen brothers?
You get another straight to DVD movie based on the classic Slap Shot movie of course.
This time, its not about an adult team, but a youth one – and despite the very notion that this is a HOCKEY movie, it features surprisingly very little hockey actually being played.
Improvising for the writers lack of originallity, the movie uses the only “successful” hockey movie concept; the one invented by Disney. The basic story: Once again the bad guys are in town, and unsurprisingly the only thing that can stop them is a youth hockey team. Throw in a few tragedy’s, maybe some heartwarming moments of “friendship” and “teamwork” and perhaps even some anti-capitalist agenda and you have this movie.
This proves that once again, sequels, threequels or whatever you call them should NOT be made, ever.
Comments placed on review websites from members of the public include:
- Wow, what a wonderful tribute to the memory of the great Paul Newman… poor bastard must be spinning over in his grave!
- Slap Shot 3 is, simply put, what happens when someone wanting a quick buck tries to apply the paradigm from The Mighty Ducks but is as skillful in exposition as the writers for KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park.
And my personal favourite from IMDB:
- I wish IMDb would let me rate this film a zero. I saw this movie, being a loyal fan of the original. I also thought nothing could be worse than Slap Shot 2 with Stephen Baldwin. I was sorely mistaken. Not only is this a failed attempt at an underdog sports movie, but it misses the spirit of the original as well. Characters are cardboard and the plot was a thinly veiled sequel to the Mighty Ducks. How little respect to producers have for the sport that they don’t do any research? A rag tag bunch of ball hockey players joining a (“the”) Junior League? The Hanson brothers need to stop soiling their legacy and stick to state fairs and minor league hockey intermissions.
So, as you can see – it is a tragic failure.
This failure however could well be a small stepping stone for the planned remake of the original Slap Shot movie, which is to be directed by Dean Parisot – “acclaimed” director of “epic” movies such as “Fun with Dick and Jane” and “Galaxy Quest”.
Personally, I am now in favour of banning any new hockey movies to be made, unless they are directed by Oliver Stone. If he could make a Hockey movie as great as the football flick “Any Given Sunday” was; the audience would be in for a treat!
Check your local 99 cent stores for copies of this movie today!
Im KevKev, and Slap Shot 3 is our first of many epic fails.