Ice hockey, partially because of its popularity as a major professional sport, has been a source of inspiration for numerous films, television episodes and songs in North American popular culture.
Films
A number of notable Hollywood films have been made about hockey. Notable hockey films include Slap Shot; The Mighty Ducks, successful enough to spawn two sequels, a cartoon series, and an NHL team named the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (now the Anaheim Ducks); and Miracle. The first two are fictional comedies; the last is a drama based on the true story of the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" USA Olympic gold medal team.
Other hockey films include Youngblood, Hockey Night, MVP: Most Valuable Primate, H-E Double Hockey Sticks, Mystery, Alaska, The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story, The Sweater, , 2010's Canadian produced miniseries "Keep Your Head Up, Kid The Don Cherry Story", its 2012 follow up, "The Wrath of Grapes" and the 1937 John Wayne film Idol of the Crowds.
One of the earliest commercial films that featured the sport prominently was the 1972 Canadian production Face-Off, starring Art Hindle. Many other films are less hockey-oriented but nonetheless prominently involve the sport. Ice Angel involves a male ice hockey player who dies and comes back to life in the body of a female figure skater. Both Happy Gilmore and The Cutting Edge centre around failed hockey players using their talents for other sports (golf and figure skating, respectively), while Wayne's World contains a number of prominent references to the sport during the film. The movie Big Daddy features actor Adam Sandler watching a hockey game involving the New York Rangers. The Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Sudden Death is set and shot entirely in the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, the (supposed) stage for the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Final. In the movie The Town, bank robber Doug MacRay (played by Ben Affleck) is a former draft pick of the Boston Bruins whose hockey career derails because of his propensity to get into fights with his teammates. In another Boston-based movie, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Eddie (played by Robert Mitchum) is taken to a Boston Bruins game (against the Chicago Black Hawks during the 1972–1973 season at the old Boston Garden) right before he is killed. Upon watching Bruins great Bobby Orr, he states "Can you imagine being a kid like that? What is he, 24 or something? Greatest hockey player in the world. Number four – Bobby Orr. Geeze, what a future he’s got, huh?" The Canadian buddy cop film Bon Cop, Bad Cop features a by-the-book English Canadian teamed with a rule-bending French Canadian to investigate a series of murders connected to professional hockey.
In Quebec, the 1997 film Les Boys is a cult classic for many hockey fans, enough to spawn three sequels. The fourth installment of Les Boys featured "Hockey Legends" such as Guy Lafleur, Pierre Bouchard, Martin Brodeur, Yvon Lambert and more.
Hockey has also been referenced many times in the series known as the View Askew Movies, which were written and directed by actor/director/writer/hockey fan Kevin Smith. His first movie, Clerks, featured a street hockey game played on the roof of a store, but many of the players in the game wore ice hockey jerseys, including jerseys of the New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Penguins and the Soviet Union. Mallrats shows the character Brodie (Jason Lee) playing an ice hockey game on the Sega Genesis game console. Chasing Amy includes a scene in which Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck attending a high school ice hockey game. Dogma did not feature ice hockey but included three street hockey playing teenagers as henchmen for a demon. More recent, Smith's film Zack and Miri Make a Porno features a rec league ice hockey scene, several Pittsburgh Penguins references and a scene outside Mellon Arena.
In the animated motion picture A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969), Snoopy skates on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center in New York City, fantasizing about scoring the winning goal in the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Ryan O'Neal's character in the international hit 1970 film Love Story (based on the novel of the same name by Erich Segal) was a hockey player for his college.
While National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was not a hockey movie, Chevy Chase's lead character, Clark Griswold, was famous for wearing a light Chicago Blackhawks jersey with "Griswold" and the numbers "00" on it during certain scenes. It also plays a part in Disney Channel original movies Go Figure and Genius, and romantic comedy Just Friends.
The 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off features Ferris's best friend Cameron wearing a vintage Detroit Red Wings Gordie Howe jersey through most of the movie.
In the 1996 cult favorite Swingers, Trent (played by Vince Vaughn) is playing an NHL 93 video game with his friends and extolling the toughness of Jeremy Roenick (then of the Chicago Blackhawks) and takes delight in bashing Wayne Gretzky (then of the Los Angeles Kings) in the game.
In the film The Love Guru, Mike Myers is hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs as a counsel to their star player.
Dwayne Johnson starred in the film The Tooth Fairy, where he played an ice hockey player forced to moonlight as a tooth fairy.
The 2012 film Goon starred Seann William Scott as a bouncer from Boston who becomes an enforcer in a Canadian hockey league.
The 2013 Russian film Legend № 17,Legend № 17 a biopic of Russian ice hockey legend Valeri Kharlamov from early childhood, rising to the pinnacle of the sport and his untimely death.
Television
United States Hockey also frequently shows up in American television, particularly in shows set in the colder regions of the US, such as the Northeast and Midwest. One of the recurring characters on Cheers was Eddie LeBec, a French-Canadian Boston Bruins goalie who married regular character Carla Tortelli. LeBec later was cut from the team and joined a traveling ice show; the character was eventually killed off. One memorable episode of Seinfeld, "The Face Painter", involves the antics of Elaine's face-painting boyfriend Puddy, a rabid New Jersey Devils fan, and Jerry's stubborn refusal to thank an acquaintance for New York Rangers playoff tickets after the game when he had already thanked him numerous times beforehand. In NYPD Blue, the character of PA Donna Abandando, played by Gail O'Grady and a love interest of Detective Greg Medavoy in season 3, was a noted New York Rangers fan, having previously dated one of the players. Her Rangers pennant famously hung over her desk at the front of the squad room. Many episodes of Home Improvement included references to the Detroit Red Wings and in one episode, Tim and his neighbour Wilson are at a game when Wilson wins the door prize. Many Friends episodes also involve Joey, Chandler, and Ross attending New York Rangers games. While it is true they are Ranger fans, a Detroit Red Wings jersey can also be seen hanging below a goalie mask in Joey and Chandler's apartment in season two.
In an episode of The Simpsons, "Lisa on Ice", Bart is the star of his peewee hockey team, the Mighty Pigs, coached by Chief Wiggum. Lisa is eventually forced to become a goaltender on an opposing team—the Kwik-E-Mart Gougers, coached by Apu—to avoid a failing grade in gym, and she blossoms from a nervous wreck to an intimidating star. Eventually, the two teams play each other. Towards the end of the game, Bart is awarded a penalty shot, but before he shoots, he thinks of all his memories with Lisa. Lisa does this as well, and the two embrace each other. The episode finishes with the two teams tying each other and furious fans destroying the hockey arena. In another episode, Bart answers his teacher's personal ad and uses the picture of hockey great Gordie Howe.
The South Park episode "Stanley's Cup" centres around ice hockey; it features the Detroit Red Wings playing the Colorado Avalanche in Stanley's Cup final, where before third intermission score is 2-2. On their suggestion, the Avalanche team is replaced with children, who are brutally injured in the ensuing game. Also in the episode "It's Christmas in Canada", when the boys are in Canada, one of the members of the Canadian crowd is an ice hockey player, no doubt a reference to the popularity of the sport in Canada.
The FX show Rescue Me, starring Denis Leary, featured hockey games as an integral part of several episodes. Hockey Hall of Famers and former Boston Bruins forwards Cam Neely and Phil Esposito both appeared, with Esposito playing a recurring role. Leary's character plays for the FDNY hockey team.
The Fox TV series Bones incorporated ice-hockey into the show by guest-starring none other than Luc Robitaille himself. "Lucky Luc" appears in a dream that Special Agent Seeley Booth has after being knocked out during a hockey game, and tells Booth to look at what "brings the team together." The show, titled "Fire in the Ice", had several elements of ice hockey, including a firefighters–federal agents hockey game, the murder victim a hockey player, and of course, "Lucky Luc".
At the end of one episode of Who's the Boss?, Tony and Angela are at a hockey game. Angela asks Tony what the red circle on the ice is for, and Tony indicates that it is blood (humorously furthering the stereotype of hockey violence). In Scrubs, Dr. Cox frequently wears a Detroit Red Wings jersey while not at the hospital; this is because of John C. McGinley's real-life friendship with Red Wings defenceman Chris Chelios. Joey from Full House also frequently wears Detroit Red Wings jerseys on the show, while his room is also decorated with several pieces of Detroit Red Wings decorations.
House M.D. is filled with reference to the sport. In the episode Distractions, the main character is described as not wanting to think of "the Flyers sucking", the series being set in New Jersey. No More Mr. Nice Guy has a scene in which House and Wilson drink in a bar, with a hockey game on TV in the background. In "Painless" both the patient and his son are hockey players. At the beginning of the episode "Unfaithful" a homeless man is offered a New York Rangers sweatshirt to which he jokingly responds "Are you crazy? We're here in Jersey". The cold opener of the season 8 episode "Perils of Paranoia" features an attorney knocking down an alibi by demonstrating that the defendant read about a New Jersey Devils game in the paper rather than watching it on TV. The same season has the episode "Transplant" in which House and Chi Park visit the room of a deceased patient, filled with Devils memorabilia. The patient of the episode "Gut Check" is a minor league hockey Enforcer.
In How I Met Your Mother, hockey is referenced several times to accentuate Robin Scherbatsky's Canadian side. In one episode, Robin goes on a date with Brad at a Canucks-Rangers game.
Actor Richard Dean Anderson has incorporated his personal love of hockey into two of his lead characters: the eponymous character in MacGyver, and Stargate SG-1'''s Jack O'Neill.
The Nickelodeon TV show, Big Time Rush, features four hockey players who leave Minnesota to go to L.A to become a pop band.
On one episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Tom Paris watches a hockey game on an old black & white TV set his wife replicated. He also had a hockey Holodeck program.
Canada