Making 'Slap Shot': From fishing lobster on the bay to hanging with Paul Newman
Published Tuesday May 6th, 2008
Downshore resident Darryl Knowles' rough and tumble hockey style lead to his appearing in classic sports movie in the late 1970s
Darryl Knowles can't help but smile when he thinks back to his days in the rough and tumble North American Hockey League.
Instead of being out on the Bay of Chaleur hauling up lobster traps, the Janeville fisherman was on ice with his teammates from the Syracuse Blazers in front of the cameras for a major Hollywood film, the classic 1977 sports movie Slap Shot.
"They picked eight guys from our team," recalled the 57-year-old. "We were just, I guess, the guys that were a little bit rougher."
Although you won't find his name in the credits, Knowles and the other Syracuse players were the ones who faced off against the Johnstown Chiefs, the team captained by movie superstar Paul Newman as fading minor leaguer Reggie Dunlop. Filmed in Johnston, Pennsylvania in 1976, Slap Shot was a brush with fame that Knowles almost missed.
"I was supposed to go down to a (film) shoot from April 26 to May 1, but that is when we set the lobster traps here and that was my bread and butter back then," he explained. "I ended up not going for the (first) shoot, but I did go down from May 11 to 23. I had to get someone to fish for me."
Knowles said people still ask him about the experience, given the movie's enduring popularity, as per TV screenings and its availability on VHS and DVD He regrets missing the opening days of shooting for the movie, which included one of Slap Shot's most memorable scenes, when his teammates step off the bus and threaten to harm Newman's character in that night's hockey game.
"All the guys that I played hockey with were right there in that one shoot," he said.
If you look closely, you can see Knowles on screen at various points.
"I can pick myself out maybe five or six times, but it is real quick," he said. "Especially in the American version. There was quite a bit cut out of the Canadian version."
In the movie, Knowles actually scores a goal and is on screen during the climactic scene where actor Michael Ontkean (who later played in the sheriff in the cult-favourite TV series Twin Peaks) breaks away from a bench-clearing brawl to perform an on-ice strip tease.
"That actually took a day and a half to film," laughed Knowles. "I think it took 15 takes to get it right because we were all covered in (fake) blood and everybody would start laughing. I can pick myself out in the background of that scene.
"Where I scored a goal I was wearing a green uniform," he added. "You see me score, then I turn real quick and I'm skating back."
Knowles spent four seasons with the Syracuse Blazers (called the Bulldogs in the film), from 1973 to 1977. He notched 44 goals and 62 assists in 181 regular season games, and also earned 397 minutes in penalties. At the time, his team's biggest rivals were the Johnstown Jets, who became the Chiefs in the movie. The Jets lineup included three career minor leaguers who earned a certain degree of celebrity, thanks to their appearance in Slap Shot.
Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and Dave Hanson became the brawling Hanson brothers, a comical but tough trio known more for their fighting antics than their hockey skills. Although the players themselves may have been very different in real life from their on-screen characters, Knowles admits the on-ice antics were not always that far fetched.
"These are guys I played against. I actually fought them all over the course of time," he said, grinning at the recollection. "The bench-clearing brawls that we had were unreal. One time we couldn't even complete the game and they had to bring in policemen with dogs to separate the fans and players in the hallway. We were a fighting team."
It was that fighting spirit that inspired the movie that was filmed a year before it hit theatres.
"When the season was over, we didn't know if we were going to be in the movie or not," recalled Knowles. "Then I got a call from Paul Newman's brother when I was back home in Clifton."
As for making the movie itself, it wasn't all glamour and excitement.
"We made $125 a day plus all our room and board, all our food, plus they flew us there and home. We had to be on scene every morning at seven (a.m.) and in the makeup room. We had breakfast on site and then we just had to wait in the dressing room until we were called upon. We met all the actors and I used to chum around with Jerry Houser. When you look back at it, it was pretty awesome."
Houser played Dave "Killer" Carlson in Slap Shot and had earlier co-starred in the hit 1971 movie Summer of 42.
As for Newman, Knowles had nothing but good things to say about the Oscar-winning screen legend, known for such classic movies as Cool Hand Luke, The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to name but a few.
"He was a very nice guy. I met his wife, (actress) Joanne Woodward, too and she was really nice," he said. "They had a house for Paul Newman and he had a trailer right on site, but he used to come into the dressing room to visit the boys. When he found out I was from the East Coast, he said he had visited Newfoundland and really liked it there."
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