Slap Shot 3 Takes the Ice in Vancouver

I also published a slightly different version of this interview over on E!Online

This fall the Hanson Brothers will take to the ice in the 3rd movie in the Slap Shot series: Slap Shot 3: The Junior League. The film was shot around Metro Vancouver and features comedy and hockey legends along with a promising young cast.

Vancouver-area actor Hunter Elliott has been in the film and television industry since he was 11 years old, “this is my biggest release so far, and I’m pretty excited.”

Photo credit: Rannie Turingan on Flickr
View the rest of Rannie’s shots of Ryan and Hunter

Elliott stars in Slap Shot 3 along with Ryan McDonell who also started his career in Vancouver and has recent Battlestar Galactica credits. To go from floating in space to shooting at the rink in South Surrey was pretty surreal, albeit an “amazing experience”.

When Elliott got the call about being cast in the film, he was “through the roof with excitement,” noting that it was one of the best days of his life, knowing he’d be a part of this franchise. “I pretty much grew up on Slap Shot, my dad played hockey in high school and got a scholarship for Brock University for goal tending so I have a pretty intense hockey background.”

Elliott and McDonell were paired up with veterans such as Leslie Neilsen. “When he comes on screen he’s got such character to him and it’s really – he’s an hysterical man,” commented McDonell who also praised Lynda Boyd, who plays his mother in the film.

Slap Shot 3 also sees roles and cameos from hockey stars such as Doug Gilmour, who McDonell admits was one of his childhood icon, “sitting behind a bench and watching them do the scenes was pretty surreal.”

Both needed to touch up on their hockey skills for the part and as Elliott stated, “When you have such motivation you work so hard at it, it’s not just a movie for me – I learned so much aside from learning how to skate – about the emotion of hockey – it was incredible.”

When asked, they both agreed that Slap Shot is “the only true hockey movie,” and McDonell added, “It’s this version of 70s hockey where there was this whole element of the fighting and the grittiness of it.” However, as this latest version is a family movie, “hopefully we get some more kids signing up to play hockey in Canada out of it too.”

Slap Shot 3 will be available on DVD November 25th …and for the record, they are also both Vancouver Canucks fans.

I also published a slightly different version of this interview over on E!Online