Slap Shot 3: The Junior League 2008

In the fictional Rust Belt city of Charlestown, Pennsylvania (inspired by the real city of Johnstown, where the movie was filmed), the local steel mill is about to permanently close and lay off 10,000 workers. This indirectly threatens the existence of the town’s minor league ice hockey team, the Charlestown Chiefs, which is struggling with a losing season, incompetent players, and increasingly hostile spectators. Player-coach Reggie Dunlop, like most of the team, has no employment prospects outside hockey. As a money-saving measure, the team’s penny-pinching manager, Joe McGrath, signs the young, immature Hanson Brothers.

After seeing Charlestown fans responding positively to violence, Dunlop unleashes the Hansons, whose play mainly consists of brutalizing the other team. To motivate the players, he leaks to a newspaper a fabricated story about a potential sale to a community in Florida, hoping that if the team becomes popular enough, it will happen. The brawls bring fans to the games, increasing attendance, and the Chiefs start winning.

Ned Braden, the team’s top scorer, refuses to take part in the violence; Dunlop attempts to get him to fight by exploiting his marital troubles, encouraging but failing to get Braden’s wife Lily to leave him due to his coldness. Games devolve into bench-clearing brawls, which become increasingly violent. Dunlop offers a $100 reward to any player who assaults Tim McCracken, the player-coach of the rival Syracuse team. The Chiefs rise up the ranks to become contenders for the league championship. Dunlop attempts several times to reconcile with his estranged wife Francine, who wants a divorce and to take a job on Long Island. After Lily moves in with Dunlop to get away from Braden, Dunlop takes her to meet Francine, and the women commiserate over their difficulties in being married to hockey players.

Eventually, Dunlop meets the reclusive team owner, Anita McCambridge, and learns that his efforts to increase the team’s popularity and value through violence have been for naught, as McCambridge would make more money if she folded the team as a tax write-off. Dunlop decides to abandon the strategy of violence for the championship game, believing it to be his last, and the rest of the team agrees. Their opponents from Syracuse have stocked their team with violent “goons.” After the Chiefs are crushed during the first period while playing a non-violent style and getting booed by their fans, McGrath tells them that National Hockey League scouts, whom he invited, are watching the game.

Dunlop and the rest of the team, except Braden, switch back to brawling, much to the delight of the fans. When Braden sees Lily cheering for the Chiefs, he enters the rink and performs a striptease, adding to the audience’s enjoyment and breaking up the fight. When McCracken protests this “obscene” demonstration and sucker-punches the referee for dismissing him, Syracuse is disqualified, granting the Chiefs the championship. With the Chiefs folded, Dunlop accepts the offer to be the player-coach to a Minnesota team, intending to bring his teammates with him. In a parade held for the Chiefs, Dunlop fails to convince Francine to stay with him and watches her drive away.