"Slap Shot 2"

Video Store Magazine

Publication date: April 2001

Decades before the blond-haired Hanson brothers started bee-bopping around on stage, crooning to swarms of teen-age girls with tunes such as "MMMbop," fame had touched the lives of another group of brothers known as the Hansons.

These three "brothers" (two by blood, one by friendship) appeared in—and some say made—the hockey film Slap Shot in the 1970s with Paul Newman.

In fact, the trio has experienced such a level of cult following and icon status after their initial foray into Hollywood in 1977, Universal Studios Home Entertainment couldn't think of filming a sequel to its Slap Shot without the inclusion of the infamous hockey goons—or geeks, depending on who you talk to—known as the Hansons.

Last month, the studio flew a handful of journalists up to Vancouver, Canada, to experience the phenomenon known as the Hansons first-hand. Slap Shot 2 continues the hockey schtick, but it's 24 years later, both in real time and movie time. And we've got all three Hansons, in their prime hockey form. And, of course, in those dorky Coke-bottle classes.

"They are pretty much like they were in the first film," says director Steve Boyum, who is also known for his work in Mystery, Alaska (another hockey flick).

Known professionally as the Hanson Brothers, the men are actually former pro hockey player Steve Carlson, his brother Jeff Carlson and Dave Hanson (that's just a coincidence). For two decades, they've been known as the goons of Slap Shot—and they've never escaped the question, "When are you going to make a sequel?"

"It's the No. 1 question," says Dave Hanson, the blond "goon" of the bunch. "I just kept saying 'soon.'"

Boyem took a moment between shoots to relax in the front room of the ice rink. Peeling off one his two much-needed sweatshirts, Boyem laughed when asked about the Hansons. "They're like three small children in men's bodies. They're still the big babies they were in the first movie. Every one of them is a nut. It's like running a preschool here!"

Seeing the three large men, now nearly a quarter of a century older than their initial stint as the Hansons—but still possessing the same confidence and skill on skates,—its not hard to see what elevated them to cult icons.

"Everytime people [hear I'm filming Slap Shot 2], they say 'Are the Hansons in it?'," says star Gary Busey, who plays the owner of the Charlestown Chiefs.

"Working with them has been a dream come true," says star Stephen Baldwin, who learned to love these goons as a child acting out lines from Slap Shot with his pack of now-famous brothers. "I loved these guys 24 years ago. They were shit-kicking geeks—what's there not to like about that?"

The stars as a group are quite excited about this movie and its theme.

"It will be a message in terms of hope and survival," says Busey.

The studio is planning a direct-to-video release for the film. But if Boyem, Baldwin and Busey have anything to say about it, Slap Shot 2 will have a theatrical run first.

"You would have lines around the theater," says Busey during the interview outside the hockey rink on a clear Vancouver day. "Then, the video people would have a castle to work from. The movie offers so much. It will be a surprise. A shocker. An instigator of merriment."

Adds director Boyem: "I would be surprised if it didn't get a limited theatrical release. I think it will do well for the studio. And if it goes direct-to-video, it'll be a dammed good video.

"The video marketplace reaches so many people."

Adds Baldwin later as he pumped Advil into his body to soothe sore muscles worked by hours spent on an ice rink: "With the cult status of this film, and what [we've done to the sequel], this is good enough to be in theaters."

Baldwin was instrumental in getting this film off the ground. He ran into the Hansons at a charity golf tournament years ago and that got the ball rolling.

"It was like an omen for me," Baldwin says. "Come hell or high water, we've got to do whatever we can to get this thing made."

Eight million dollars and a stint in Canada later, they did.