Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice

‘Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” -Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park)

I can’t believe something Jeff Goldblum said would ever be applicable in the real world. Now, exchange “scientists” with “producers” and apply it to the making of Slap Shot 2.

The “straight to DVD” release of Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice comes out this week and everybody, but devotees to the original, will ask the question: why? Why resurrect a film that seemed complacent to hiberate forever in the bowels of your local video store cult section?

Same basic elements are reanimated. A rag-tag group of minor-minor league hockey jocks slam each other around, floundering in last place. “Hey, you guys really sucks!” one local rube hollers. “We’re working on it,” a catch phrase retorted so often in both films that I keep wondering why it’s used. Through one tired twist or another, the Chiefs end up over their head, down in the dust, at wit’s end, with (sighÖ.., here we go) one last game to salvage everything and cure all of life’s woes.

Eradicating the rumor that Gary Busey broke free of his Hollywood holding pen years ago and is roaming the Alaskan Yukon, Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice showcases not only the gruff and grizzled actor of Drop Zone and Point Break fame, but also the mulleted Stephen Baldwin as Chiefs captain, Sean Linden.

Even a couple girls pulling a Sir-Mix-a-Lot and “puttin’ em on the glass” don’t add anything new to the hockey-debauchery of the original, where in 1977, the ultra violence and unabashed nudity was new, biting and crafted. Slap Shot?, more like Slap Ö.well you know.

-Sean McGrath

Slapshots 2: Breaking the Ice is available on DVD.