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Top Five Hockey Movies

• Slap Shot (1977): Directed by George Roy Hill and starring Paul Newman.

• Mystery, Alaska (1999): Directed by Jay Roach and starring Russell Crowe.

• The Rhino Brothers (2001): Directed by Dwayne Beaver and starring Curtis Bechdholt.

• Miracle (2004): Directed by Gavin O’Connor and starring Kurt Russell.

• The Rocket (2005): Directed by Charles Binamé and starring Roy Dupuis.

What was the first hockey movie?

The Edison Manufacturing Company made two very short films depicting hockey players in action — Hockey Match on the Ice (1898) and Hockey Match on the Ice at Montreal, Canada (1901) — so, in effect, these are the first two movies about ice hockey. The second of the two shows a couple of hundred kids playing what might well be shinny rather than organized hockey. However, the first known feature movie about hockey is the abysmal King of Hockey, a low-budget flick made by Warner Brothers in 1936. It stars Dick Purcell as Gabby Dugan, a college hockey player who makes his way into professional hockey, meets up with a nasty gambler, and gets involved with a socialite played by Anne Nagel. The movie is pretty hokey and terribly melodramatic, but it does feature hockey players from the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. Still, the American writer obviously wasn’t familiar with the game, since the script makes references to “fouls” and “the penalty cage.” If nothing else, King of Hockey is a harbinger of the hockey celluloid mediocrity that was to come.