Saturday, September 27, 2008

R.I.P. Reg

As it was match day here in England, the news of Paul Newman's death escaped me until now but I felt obligated to pop up and say something. As you can see by the quote of the week feature that I have had on this blog from the start, I love(d) Slap Shot. It was a great movie with a lotta laughs and hockey, most of which came courtesy of a certain Paul Newman. I also loved The Hustler and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I also liked Newman's salad dressing and his racing team, but not loved, but that doesn't matter. The fact is that Reg Dunlop is gone, but at least we have him on film so we can go back to it to enjoy him and his antics again and again (and again and again and again and again and even make up some new ones).

The really creepy thing about Newman's passing is that I was killing time Thursday evening in a book store and I picked up his biography of all things to see what was said about Slap Shot and the next day he passed.

*shudder* Creepy.

His bio is worth reading because it explains how Al Pacino was considered for the Dunlop role but Newman knew how to skate. Wild, huh? Could you imagine Serpico in Slap Shot?? Eesh.

The job went to Newman and Slap Shot became another great movie among the plethora that was graced by his skilled acting. RIP Reg and don't worry, we'll keep passing along your motivational words even though you are gone ...

Old time hockey!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My husband and I had the good fortune of watching hockey at the Commack Arena. He started out watching the Long Island Ducks, then the Long Island Cougars. We had season tickets to the Cougars. We went to a game one night in 1974 it was against the Syracuse Blades. Well the game never got off, a huge fight broke out during pre game skate, and the rest as they say is history. It was just like slap shot. It was the greatest time. Cheap night and great hockey. Nick Fotiu coming out of the dressing room after a game misconduct. Coming thru the stands 1/2 dressed, proceeding into the visitors bench and beating the crap out of the players. You would have loved to be witness to that. Your blogs would have been chock full of stuff. Paul Newman was a great Reggie Dunlop (aka John Brophy)