Slap Shot Trivia
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5correct to beat the crowd
49 free Slap Shot trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 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 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What do the Hanson brothers wrap around their knuckles before every game in Slap Shot?
Aluminum foil
Aluminum foil. The players who portrayed the trio say that touch came from the script: in real games they wore golf gloves dried rock-hard on a radiator.
Q 02What do the Hanson brothers play with in their hotel room while their Slap Shot teammates drink and play cards?
Toy race cars
Toy race cars. Dunlop is appalled that his new signings have brought their toys along, until he finally puts them on the ice and the childlike trio brawl their way into the crowd's affections.
Q 03Which director reunited with Paul Newman on Slap Shot after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting?
George Roy Hill
George Roy Hill. He insisted on actors who could really skate, and held on-ice tryouts in Los Angeles and New York to find them.
Q 04Who wrote the screenplay for Slap Shot?
Nancy Dowd
Nancy Dowd. She went on the road with a minor-league team, and tape recorders ran on its bus so that her dialogue would match the way the players really talked.
Q 05Whose real minor-league experiences was the Slap Shot script largely based on?
The screenwriter's brother
The screenwriter's brother. He phoned her with tales of being beaten up and losing teeth on the road, so she flew east to watch his team for herself.
Q 06What kind of eyewear do the Hanson brothers wear on the ice in Slap Shot?
Thick black-rimmed glasses
Thick black-rimmed glasses. The taped-up frames became the trio's trademark, and thirty years after the film the three actors were still putting them on for dozens of fan appearances a year.
Q 07Which real hockey brothers were Slap Shot's Hansons based on?
The Carlsons
The Carlsons. Jeff, Steve and Jack skated on one line for the Johnstown Jets, and two of them ended up in the film because no trained actor could skate well enough to play them.
Q 08Why did the third real-life brother never play a Hanson in Slap Shot?
A WHA team called him up
A WHA team called him up. He was needed for its playoff run just as shooting began, so a Johnstown teammate, Dave Hanson, took his place in the trio.
Q 09Which future Twin Peaks sheriff plays Ned Braden, the Chiefs' top scorer who refuses to fight?
Michael Ontkean
Michael Ontkean. He had been a college hockey star, and the director wanted actors who could really skate: Nick Nolte tried out too but could barely stay upright on the ice.
Q 10Which publicity stunt does tight-fisted manager Joe McGrath make the Chiefs take part in early in Slap Shot?
A fashion show
A fashion show. The players hate modelling so much that captain Johnny Upton vows to give the audience a shock on the catwalk, and the screams from the hall suggest he keeps his word.
Q 11Which actor, the prison captain in Cool Hand Luke, plays the Chiefs' penny-pinching manager Joe McGrath?
Strother Martin
Strother Martin. It is his McGrath who admits, early on, that this season will be the club's last, the news that sets Dunlop scheming to save it.
Q 12What is the name of the Chiefs' play-by-play announcer, played by Andrew Duncan?
Jim Carr
Jim Carr. His obvious toupee is a running joke: an exasperated Ned Braden storms into the broadcast booth and asks him why he wears 'that rug'.
Q 13What is closing in Slap Shot's Charlestown, costing 10,000 jobs?
Steel mill
Steel mill. Its workers are the hockey club's paying crowd, so once the closure is announced the team is told that this season will be its last as well.
Q 21Who plays Ogie Ogilthorpe, the feared Syracuse goon Slap Shot talks about but shows only at the end?
Ned Dowd
Ned Dowd. A Johnstown Jets forward, he doubled as the film's technical adviser, then stayed in the business and rose to executive producer of films such as Apocalypto.
Q 22Which country, the Chiefs' announcer reports, refused to take back the deported Ogie Ogilthorpe?
Canada
Canada. The joke had a real model: Goldie Goldthorpe, the Syracuse rookie enforcer behind the character, whose brawling on the ice and off it landed him in jail cells.
Q 23Which Long Island Ducks player-coach, later behind the Toronto Maple Leafs' bench, is said to have partly inspired Reggie Dunlop?
John Brophy
Q 14Where does Dunlop claim the Chiefs might be sold to, in order to motivate his players?
Florida
Florida. He feeds the tale to sportswriter Dickie Dunn, and once the paper prints that a St. Petersburg group is bidding, his players believe they are skating for jobs in the sun.
Q 15What is the nickname of Tim McCracken, Syracuse's player-coach in Slap Shot?
Dr. Hook
Dr. Hook. Paul D'Amato's wild-eyed turn as McCracken is said to have given comics artist John Byrne the look of his Wolverine.
Q 16Why does owner Anita McCambridge decide to shut the Chiefs down even after the crowds come back?
A tax write-off pays more
A tax write-off pays more. She compliments Dunlop on drumming up a buyer, then explains that the club is worth more to her closed than sold, which leaves his whole scheme pointless.
Q 17What does Ned Braden do on the ice that ends the brawl in the championship game?
A striptease
A striptease. As the band strikes up 'The Stripper' he peels down to skates and a jockstrap, the fighting stops to watch, and he ends up carrying the trophy round the rink dressed the same way.
Q 18What does Syracuse's player-coach do in the final that hands the Chiefs the title by forfeit?
Punches the referee
Punches the referee. Tim McCracken skates over to protest, the official waves him away, and the punch he throws in reply costs Syracuse the championship.
Q 19What does McGrath tell the losing Chiefs during the final to get them brawling again?
NHL scouts are in the stands
NHL scouts are in the stands. McGrath screams it between periods, and every Chief except Ned Braden drops the clean hockey they had sworn to play and goes back to brawling.
Q 20What does Dunlop call the clean, fight-free style he asks the Chiefs to play in the Slap Shot final?
Old-time hockey
Old-time hockey. The Chiefs try it for exactly one period, and are battered by Syracuse and booed by their own fans for their trouble.
John Brophy. A noted brawler in his Eastern league days, he gets a wink from the film, which gives his surname to Hyannisport's drunken centre.
Q 24What do the Hansons do during warm-ups against the Peterborough Patriots in Slap Shot?
Jump the other team
Jump the other team. It happened for real in a Johnstown playoff series: after the pre-game brawl the visitors from Buffalo would not come back out, and lost the game and the series by forfeit.
Q 25What hits Jeff Hanson in the face in Slap Shot, sending the brothers into the stands and then to jail?
A set of keys
A set of keys. The real incident, in Utica, began with a thrown cup of ice, and the one teammate who escaped arrest passed the hat for the squad's meal money to bail the others out.
Q 26By their coach's account, what did Binghamton's players wear in warm-ups to mock the real-life Hansons?
Plastic glasses and big noses
Plastic glasses and big noses. Coach Dick Roberge recalled his players vowing to pair off the moment the puck dropped, and a fight that ran about 30 minutes until everyone was too tired to go on.
Q 27What is Steve Hanson trying to listen to when he snaps at a lecturing referee in Slap Shot?
The national anthem
The national anthem. The referee is warning the brothers that he runs a clean game when Steve, the goon, cuts him off in outrage at the bad manners.
Q 28What made Slap Shot's Quebec dub unusual for a Hollywood film?
It used local street slang
It used local street slang. Its adapter recalls a test audience howling at the dub made in France and its European hockey terms, so the film was redone in joual, the everyday French of Quebec.
Q 29In which fictional league do the Charlestown Chiefs play in Slap Shot?
The Federal League
The Federal League. The name is made up, but men who played and broadcast in the real North American Hockey League behind it say the film barely exaggerated its nightly brawls.
Q 30Which star was in line to play Reggie Dunlop until the director asked whether he could skate?
Al Pacino
Al Pacino. He took the question as a sign that the director cared more about his skating than his acting, and the part went to Paul Newman instead.