‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F' features nods to Black hockey history

Grant Fuhr gave the scene in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” five stars.

In the new Netflix film, wisecracking detective Axel Foley, played by Eddie Murphy, tells a band of thieves that he’s the Detroit Red Wings’ new goalie as they attempt to rob the team’s dressing room at Little Caesars Arena.

“I am a five-time recipient of the Stanley Cup,” Foley says. “… I just want my goalie pads.”

Fuhr, the only Black goalie to win the Stanley Cup five times -- with the Edmonton Oilers (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990) -- loved the bit.

“I thought it was pretty funny,” he said. “I had a bunch of friends call me and they were like, ‘Hey, you got to see this.’ I’m, like, ‘Why? I've seen all the “Beverly Hills Cop” (movies).’ They’re, like, ‘No, no, you need to see this one.’ I think it’s awesome and a great honor.”

The goalie line in the opening moments of the hit action-comedy sequel is one of several that give a nod to Black hockey history.

They are the work of Kevin Etten, the self-described “hockey guy” on the writing staff of “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.” Will Beall, along with Etten and his partner Tom Gormican, wrote the screenplay.

Etten played hockey while attending Harvard University, where he also cut his comedic teeth as a member of The Harvard Lampoon, the undergraduate humor publication that helped launch the careers of Conan O’Brien, Colin Jost of “Saturday Night Live” and writers for such shows as “Seinfeld,” “Veep,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and the “Late Show with David Letterman.”

Etten said he knew “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” was the perfect assignment for him when he first saw the hockey scenes in an early version of the script (they were shot in Little Caesars Arena in December 2022).

And having Jerry Bruckheimer, the legendary Hollywood movie and television producer who is a member of the Seattle Kraken ownership group, behind the film was a bonus, he said.

“Having been a hockey player, I was, like, ‘Oh, I know I can have fun and make this really funny,’” he said. “‘There’s a lot we can get into with Eddie Murphy and hockey, and I just want to write hockey jokes.’ My partner, who is not a hockey fan, was, like, ‘Hey man, go nuts.’”

Etten took his partner’s suggestion and ran with the hockey jokes.

“That was one of the first things we dove into was to really find the comedy for Eddie in those opening beats,” Etten said. “It was an honor to write for Eddie Murphy, really. To have him say anything that you wrote was cool. And then he obviously took a lot of it but then he makes it his own -- he adds, he subtracts, he finds the rhythm.”

Etten said he came up with the Black goalie joke aware that Fuhr was a five-time Cup winner, although he admitted that “I don’t honestly think I put that together when I wrote the joke.”

“I really was just writing jokes and thought it would be funny if Eddie Murphy yelled, ‘Where are my goalie pads?’” said Etten, who wrote for Letterman from 1993-2015 and co-wrote the 2022 film “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” with Gormican.

“I heard that Grant Fuhr was getting calls, which is incredible. I grew up watching those (Oilers) teams,” Etten said. “It’s incredible that Grant Fuhr thought it was funny. That really does make me happy.”

Etten reached back into hockey history for another line when Foley, with tongue in cheek, tells a fellow detective he’s a longtime hockey fan because his great-grandfather played in the “the Negro leagues in Winnipeg” for “the Winnipeg Black Guys.”

Winnipeg didn’t have an all-Black team or league, but the line is a shoutout to the Colored Hockey League of the Canadian Maritimes, which operated from 1895 to the 1930s.

Etten, a Chicago native who grew up in Minnesota, said he learned about the league through coaching his son’s team in California and from watching television.

“I’m always watching hockey on TNT -- I think Anson Carter did a piece on it -- and I also watch ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ religiously,” he said. “I feel like through one of those it was, ‘All right, this thing existed.’”

George Fosty, co-author of the 2004 book “Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Canadian Maritimes, 1895-1925,” said the reference shows an increased awareness of Black hockey history.

“The fact that it’s made it into the mainstream media is interesting,” Fosty said. “It kind of says it’s gotten into the fabric of society. There have been a couple of other references and movies of late about Black hockey. An ‘NCIS’ episode a few years back made references to Black hockey out of Nova Scotia. It’s not so isolated anymore.”