Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Slap Shot trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Slapshot trivia quiz covers George Roy Hill's 1977 hockey comedy from the Charlestown steel mill closing to the striptease that wins the championship. There are questions on the plot (the $100 bounty, the fake Florida sale, Anita McCambridge's tax write-off, the Hansons in the stands, Ogie Ogilthorpe's long-delayed arrival) and on the cast: Paul Newman as Reggie Dunlop, Michael Ontkean as Ned Braden, Strother Martin as Joe McGrath, and the real minor-leaguers who played the Hanson Brothers. The harder half is about the true stories behind it: Nancy Dowd's brother Ned and the Johnstown Jets, the Carlson brothers and Dave Hanson, the WHA call-up that reshuffled the Hansons, the real brawls in Binghamton and Utica that became scenes, Goldie Goldthorpe, the Quebecois dub, the $28 million gross, the reviews that came around, and the sequels Newman skipped. Easy questions suit anyone who has watched it on a team bus; the expert ones are for people who know which player-coach inspired Reggie. Every answer was checked against the film's Wikipedia article and its cited sources before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays player-coach Reggie Dunlop?
Paul Newman
He called it the most fun he ever had making a movie, and said his language never recovered from the locker room.
Q 02What is the name of the minor-league team at the centre of Slap Shot?
The Charlestown Chiefs
The fictional Chiefs were closely modelled on a real Johnstown club, whose players filled out the cast.
Q 03Who directed Slap Shot?
George Roy Hill
He had already directed Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting.
Q 04Who wrote the screenplay for Slap Shot?
Nancy Dowd
She was paid $50,000 for a script that took four months, built from her brother's locker-room tape recordings.
Q 05Whose real minor-league experiences was the script largely based on?
The screenwriter's brother
Ned Dowd phoned his sister from Utica and Syracuse to describe being beaten up and having his teeth knocked out.
Q 06What kind of eyewear do the Hanson Brothers wear on the ice?
Thick black-rimmed glasses
Jeff and Steve Carlson really did wear that style, and their coach recalled rivals mocking it before a 30-minute brawl.
Q 07Which real hockey brothers were the Hansons based on?
The Carlsons
Jeff, Steve and Jack all played with Ned Dowd in Johnstown.
Q 08Why did Jack Carlson not appear in the film as the third Hanson brother?
He was called up by the WHA's Edmonton Oilers
Dave Hanson slid into the role of Jack Hanson, and Jerry Houser was hired to play Dave 'Killer' Carlson instead.
Q 09Who plays Ned Braden, the college-educated top scorer who refuses to fight?
Michael Ontkean
Ontkean really had played college hockey, at the University of New Hampshire, though he is Canadian rather than the American citizen the announcer trumpets.
Q 10What is Reggie Dunlop's jersey number?
7
Newman had played hockey as a young man and said he was fascinated by the players around him.
Q 11Who plays Joe McGrath, the Chiefs' penny-pinching general manager?
Strother Martin
Martin and Newman had famously squared off a decade earlier in Cool Hand Luke.
Q 12What is the name of the Chiefs' play-by-play announcer, played by Andrew Duncan?
Jim Carr
He is the one who marvels that Ned Braden is a college graduate and an American citizen.
Q 13Roughly how many workers face layoffs when the town's steel mill closes?
10,000
The looming closure is what makes the team's survival, and Dunlop's, feel so desperate.
Where does Dunlop claim the team might be sold to, in order to motivate his players?
Q 21Which real team's players filled out the cast as Chiefs and opponents?
The Johnstown Jets
By coincidence both the Jets and their league, the NAHL, folded in 1977, the year the film came out.
Q 22Who plays Ogie Ogilthorpe, the feared Syracuse goon talked about all film but only seen at the end?
Ned Dowd
He used the role to launch a career as a character actor, assistant director and line producer.
Q 23Which real minor-league enforcer inspired Ogie Ogilthorpe?
Goldie Goldthorpe
As a Syracuse Blazers rookie in 1973 he racked up 25 major fighting penalties before Christmas.
Florida
The story is a total fabrication; at the end he actually lands a player-coach job elsewhere.
Q 15How much is the bounty Dunlop puts on Syracuse player-coach Tim McCracken?
$100
McCracken, nicknamed Dr. Hook, is played by Paul D'Amato.
Q 16What is the nickname of Syracuse's Tim McCracken?
Dr. Hook
His sucker punch on the referee in the final gets Syracuse disqualified and hands the Chiefs the title.
Q 17Why does owner Anita McCambridge plan to fold the Chiefs despite the sold-out crowds?
Folding it is a better tax write-off
Kathryn Walker plays the reclusive owner who deflates Dunlop's whole scheme in one conversation.
Q 18What does Ned Braden do on the ice that ends the brawl in the championship game?
A striptease
Time's critic Richard Schickel disliked the gag, calling it a broader, cheaper kind of comic response.
Q 19How do the Chiefs end up being declared champions?
Syracuse is disqualified for punching the referee
McCracken calls the display obscene, hits the referee, and the title goes to the Chiefs.
Q 20What does McGrath tell the losing Chiefs during the final to get them brawling again?
NHL scouts are in the stands
The invented scouts do the trick, and everyone but Braden goes back to fighting.
Q 24Which real player-coach was Reggie Dunlop partly based on?
John Brophy
His surname is borrowed for the drunken Hyannisport centre; he later coached Dave Hanson with the Birmingham Bulls.
Q 25What do the Hansons do during warm-ups against the Peterborough Patriots?
Jump the other team
It was based on a real Johnstown brawl against the Buffalo Norsemen that ended in a forfeit.
Q 26What hits Jeff Hanson in the face, sending the brothers into the stands and to jail?
A set of keys
In real life it was a cup of ice thrown by a Utica fan, and Dave Hanson gathered the bail money for his teammates.
Q 27Which real-life event inspired the Hansons fighting right after the opening faceoff?
Rivals skating out in joke glasses and big noses
Binghamton's players came out in plastic glasses and big noses; the resulting fight went about 30 minutes.
Q 28Which real team were the film's Broome County Blades based on?
The Dusters
The Dusters were the Jets' bitter rivals in the North American Hockey League.
Q 29What is notable about the film's dub for Quebec audiences?
It uses colloquial Quebecois, not standard French
Two Quebec cast members dubbed their own lines, and phrases like 'Dave est magane' became catchphrases in Quebec.
Q 30Which two Quebec-born cast members dubbed their own voices for the French version?
Yvan Ponton and Yvon Barrette
They play a forward and the goaltender.