45 years later, Bruce Boudreau fondly recalls cameo in Slap Shot
"It's the only movie I've been in, so I've got to rank it number one"
"Finish the year and have fun, go make that movie with them and enjoy Johnstown," was what he recalled being told. The movie his representative was referring to was none other than Slap Shot, one of the most celebrated hockey films of all time, which turns 45 today.
At the time, Boudreau was playing in his first season for the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association after not coming to terms with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who selected him 42nd overall in the NHL's 1975 Amateur Draft. The Fighting Saints had been in financial trouble for years and not long after failing to make payroll in December 1975, they sent Boudreau to the Johnstown Jets of the North American Hockey League.
While the Fighting Saints continued to hemorrhage cash, Boudreau was lighting the lamp in the NAHL. In a game against the Philadelphia Firebirds on February 20, 1976, Boudreau scored four goals and added two assists in a 13-2 blowout.
A week after Boudreau's four-goal effort in Johnstown, the Fighting Saints finally folded. A dispersal draft was held in early March 1976 for the club's players and Boudreau's rights were snatched up by the Indianapolis Racers. Instead of joining the Racers to close out the WHA campaign, Boudreau's agents assured him he would ink a contract with the Maple Leafs for the following season and advised him to stay put in Johnstown, where production of Slap Shot had commenced.
"Listening to your agent's advice, whether it was good or bad, is what I did and I was part of the movie," Boudreau recently recalled in a telephone interview.
Boudreau finished the season with the Jets with 25 goals in 34 games, but quickly learned that the movie business is tougher than it looks.
"You had your skates on all day, eight to 10 hours per day," he said. "There were so many different takes of everything that you had to keep them on. What I found out is that movie making really looks good but in the end it isn't really that fun because it's a lot of work."
Despite the long days on set, being a part of the film did provide Boudreau with the opportunity to rub shoulders with star Paul Newman, who portrayed the character Reggie Dunlop. While some of his NAHL colleagues reportedly pranked the actor by doing things such as putting sock tape on the bottom of his blades so he'd slip on the ice, the rookie wanted no part in anything like that.
"That's like pulling a prank on the president," Boudreau said. "Some people you just don't pull pranks on."
Instead, Boudreau tried to impart his hockey knowledge to the Hollywood legend. One day Newman pulled him aside and asked him how to take a slap shot.
"I think I went into too much detail and he said, 'OK, kid. That's enough,'" he said.
While Boudreau got to know him a little bit during the course of filming, Newman got to go right inside the young hockey player's world. When director George Roy Hill needed a location to shoot some of the scenes inside Dunlop's apartment, he reportedly wanted to go with messiest apartment among the Jets. He asked the players and without hesitation they all pointed towards Boudreau.
Boudreau's cameo comes at the halfway point in the film when the Charlestown Chiefs, the fictional team inspired by the Jets, take on the Hyannisport Presidents on the road. Boudreau sports No. 7 for the Presidents. And while Boudreau's appearance is brief, his real-life Johnstown teammates, Dave Hanson and Jeff Carlson and Steve Carlson, who formed the iconic Hanson brothers, stole the show.
Although the Hanson brothers are best remembered for their absurd antics against opposing players, Boudreau doesn't think they actually had to do much to get into character.
"I don't think they put on too much other than the over-the-top fighting," he said.
"They were all really tough. The team was tough. When I played there we had stories like that going all the time. It was quite a league built on toughness. Don't forget that 1976 was the era of the Broad Street Bullies, so every team from the NHL on down wanted the toughest team on the block and in Johnstown we did have that tough team and it was fairly accurate all around."
In the end it all worked out for Boudreau just as his agent envisioned. A couple of weeks before Slap Shot was released in theatres on February 25, 1977, Boudreau made his NHL debut for the Maple Leafs. A few games later, he scored his first goal three minutes into a matchup against the Red Wings.
While Boudreau enjoys other hockey flicks such as Youngblood and Mystery Alaska, 45 years later, he still has Slap Shot at the top of his list. And why shouldn't he?
"It's the only movie I've been in, so I've got to rank it number one," he said.
Now in his 14th season behind an NHL bench, Boudreau has a great eye for identifying talent on the ice and when asked which of his Canucks players would do best in a hockey movie today, he knew exactly whose name he would forward to the casting director. "We've got a couple characters on this team, but I'd like to think that J.T. Miller would go in there," he said.
"He's not afraid. He's not shy. He'd go in there and be himself. I think anytime you're making a movie or doing anything you're not familiar with, you're going be a little shy. I just think J.T.'s got a lot of confidence in himself and he would go in there and do it the right way. Even if he was an extra he'd be the star of the movie."
