![]() ![]() They were a brand, much the same as a rock band or a movie star. Suddenly the Hansons were traveling across North America, raising funds for charities and making good money. Opportunities as paid pitchmen increased. The demand for the Hanson Brothers grew exponentially from that modest start. "There's more security in doing the Hanson Brothers than coaching in the hockey world." ![]() "We were like holy crap, there's a little more security here," Steve Carlson said. A few weeks later, they did a second reunion at the Houston Field House, home of the Capital District Islanders - another sellout. The three decided to get back together and were greeted by a full house at the Mid-South Coliseum. Jeff Carlson had been retired from hockey for a decade and had gone home to Minnesota. At the time, Dave Hanson was the general manager of the Capital District Islanders, an AHL team based in Albany, New York. In attempt to get more bodies into the Mid-South Coliseum, the home of the Riverkings, a reunion of the Hanson Brothers was pitched during Steve's final season coaching in Memphis. A simple suggestion from the Riverkings GM had paved the way for a second act. ![]() The Riverkings weren't drawing well enough, and the then-38-year-old coach, after two decades of grinding, called it a career.īut for a Hanson Brother, when one penalty-box door closes, another opens. Paul, Hartford, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Nashville, Birmingham, Baltimore, Memphis I've been everywhere, man! - Steve Carlson knew it was time to end his pro hockey journey.Īt the time, he was coaching the Memphis Riverkings, a middling team in the Central Hockey League. He was going to be a hockey lifer, as a player and then as a coach, not a nostalgia act.īut after 14 years as a professional player and another six as a minor league coach, living his own version of the Hank Snow country classic "I've Been Everywhere" - Marquette, Johnstown, St. Steve Carlson never thought the Steve Hanson role would become his lot in life. They did a heck of a job for not being actors. "They're still, to this day, going to arenas, rinks and making appearances. "They've been doing things for that movie, so it just shows how great the movie was and how popular it was," said retired NHL defenseman Ken Daneyko, a television analyst for the New Jersey Devils. The Hanson Brothers receive more than 300 requests a year to make appearances. Steve and Vicki were the main organizers of the event, which was to include a game at Cambria County War Memorial Arena, the movie home of the Charlestown Chiefs. This weekend, other cast members and fans from all over the world were scheduled to join the Hansons for festivities in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. 25, 1977, "Slap Shot" is celebrating its 40th anniversary, and the franchise is as strong as ever. Indeed, Carlson, 61, talks about and mentions the movie almost every day now as he tours the world as one of the Hansons, making solo appearances or showing up with his movie brothers: real-life sibling Jeff and lifelong friend Dave Hanson, who played Jack Hanson in the film when Jack Carlson couldn't make the shooting schedule because he had been called up to the WHA. It did bother me at the beginning, but it's my livelihood." "She said, 'Why don't you mention that stuff? Why don't you tell people that stuff, that it bothered you?' I said, 'Oh well, that's not the way I am. "I would never talk about 'Slap Shot,' I would never want to mention 'Slap Shot' because I was a hockey player, not an actor. "I said to her, 'You know, I was really after we made 'Slap Shot' that I would be going, playing, making it to the NHL, making it to the, playing pretty well and everyone recognized me as an actor.' "We just talked about this, me and my wife," Steve Carlson said of Vicki, his wife of five years. ![]() Somehow Carlson has navigated what at times has been a frustrating, demanding road - not all that different from the long minor-league bus rides romanticized in the iconic 1977 hockey movie - through four decades, slipping regularly between his real-life persona and that of the goofy, violent, yet lovable Steve Hanson, one of the three brother characters who are central to the film. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |