December 16, 1974: “The Towering Inferno” Premieres

December 16, 1974: The Towering Inferno premieres, directed by John Guillerman and produced by Irwin Allen, "The Master of Disaster." Within the past 2 years, the 1,368-foot, 110-story World Trade Center had opened in New York; the 1,454-foot, 110-story Sears Tower had opened in Chicago; and the 1,815-foot CN Tower in Toronto, with a 1,122-foot-high observation deck, had begun construction.

It's a film with "a cast of thousands." Steve McQueen and Paul Newman were two of the biggest stars in the movies at the time, and each wanted top billing. So a compromise was reached: Their names were staggered on the posters, so that McQueen was listed on the left, but Newman's name was higher, allowing each man to claim top billing. Each man was paid $1 million -- about $5.75 million in 2022 money.

The film was based on the novels The Tower by Richard Martin Stern, and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. In the film, the skyscraper is known as the Glass Tower, designed by architect Doug Roberts (Newman). It's 1,688 feet high (a height that wouldn't be reached in real life until 2007) and 138 stories above the streets of San Francisco.

The Tower's electrical system gets overloaded, and a fire starts on the 81st floor. McQueen plays Battalion Chief Michael O'Hallorhan, leading the firefighters. Maureen McGovern, previously in Allen's disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, plays a singer, and, as she did in the previous film with "The Morning After" (which hit Number 1 for her in 1973), sings the theme song.

Older stars: Fred Astaire, William Holden, Jennifer Jones, Olan Soule. Younger stars: Richard Chamberlain, Dabney Coleman, Faye Dunaway, Susan Flannery, Mike Lookinland, Felton Perry, Gregory Sierra, Robert Vaughn, Robert Wagner... and football star O.J. Simpson.

*

December 16, 1974 was a Monday. Despite this, ABC did not air a Monday Night Football game, having aired a Saturday night game 2 nights earlier. Baseball was out of season. No games were played in the NBA, the ABA, the NHL or the WHA. So there were no scores on this historic day.

November 1, 1967: “Cool Hand Luke” Premieres

November 1, 1967: The film Cool Hand Luke premieres. Good thing I told you, or what we would've had here was failure to communicate.

Stuart Rosenberg directed. As the title suggests, it features Paul Newman at his all-time coolest. He plays Lucas Jackson, sentenced to 2 years' hard labor in a Georgia prison (though filmed in California's San Joaquin Valley) for cutting the heads off parking meters in an act of drunken mischief.

Lucas refuses to observe the established order among the prisoners, and quickly runs afoul of their leader, Clarence Slidell, a.k.a. Dragline (played by George Kennedy). When the two have a boxing match, the much smaller Lucas is severely outmatched, but refuses to give up. Dragline stops the fight, with Lucas having won his respect, and the other prisoners follow. (They include men played by Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, Ralph Waite, Wayne Rogers, Anthony Zerbe, Joe Don Baker and James Gammon.)

Lucas later wins a poker game by bluffing with a hand worth nothing, and Dragline christens him "Cool Hand Luke." Luke brags that he can eat 50 eggs in 1 hour, and Dragline arranges the challenge, which Luke wins. (Note: Do not try this. You do not have a Hollywood scriptwriter aiding you, and you will die.)

Having received a visit from his mother (Jo Van Fleet) earlier in the film, Luke is given word that she has died. In order to prevent him from trying to escape to attend her funeral, he is put in "the box," a tight, hot, air-restricted form of solitary confinement.

Before this, he was doing okay, and had never tried to escape. After this, he does, and is caught. The warden (Strother Martin), and his "Walking Boss," Godfrey (Morgan Woodward), who always wears sunglasses and is thus known to the prisoners as "The Man With No Eyes," fit Luke with leg irons, and throw him into a ditch in front of the other prisoners. The Captain says, "What we have here is... failure... to communicate."

He tries 2 more escapes, and is finally tortured to the point where he is broken, and becomes the guards' errand boy, losing the other prisoners' respect. But this new job gives him another opportunity to escape, including stealing a truck. Dragline joins him.

After abandoning the truck, they agree to separate. Luke enters a church and talks to God, whom he blames for sabotaging him so he cannot win in life. Police cars appear moments later, and Dragline arrives to tell him that he will not be hurt if he surrenders peacefully.

Instead, Luke, comes out, and repeats the Captain's line: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate." Godfrey kills him with a rifle shot to the neck. Dragline carries Luke outside and surrenders, but charges at Godfrey and strangles him until he is subdued by the guards. The car taking Luke's body away runs over Godfrey's shades, crushing them.

Lalo Schifrin composed the music for the film. The theme played during one of the prisoners' brush-clearing scenes became the theme song for Eyewitness News on ABC stations. Like Schifrin's theme for the TV show Mission: Impossible, it was composed with the unusual time signature of 5/4.

The film was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Newman for Best Actor and Schifrin for Best Original Music Score. Only Kennedy won, for Best Supporting Actor.

*

November 1, 1967 was a Wednesday. Singer Sophie B. Hawkins was born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 5 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 129-113 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Willis Reed scored 53 points, and had 18 rebounds.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 136-111 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.

* The St. Louis Hawks beat the Cincinnati Royals, 101-96 at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* The San Francisco Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 137-132 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* And in a battle of the NBA's 2 new expansion teams, the San Diego Rockets beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 139-125. This game was played on neutral ground, at the Portland Memorial Coliseum, to see if Portland was a good market for further expansion. The NBA decided it was, and the Portland Trail Blazers began play in 1970. The Rockets moved to Houston in 1971, and San Diego only had the Clippers from 1978 to 1984, while the Sonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008. So, of the 3 cities, only Portland remains.

There were 2 games in the brand-new American Basketball Association. The New Jersey Americans, forerunners of the Nets, lost to the Indiana Pacers, 123-113 at the Indiana State Fair Coliseum (now the Corteva Coliseum) in Indianapolis. And the Pittsburgh Pipers beat the Denver Rockets, 112-103 in overtime at the Denver Auditorium Arena. In 1974, in correct anticipation of soon joining the NBA, who already had the Houston Rockets, the Denver Rockets became the Denver Nuggets.

And there were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Oakland Seals, 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Boston Bruins, 5-1 at the St. Louis Arena.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks, the Detroit Red Wings, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Los Angeles Kings were not scheduled.

September 30, 1955: The Death of James Dean

September 30, 1955: Actor James Dean is killed in a car crash. He was only 24 years old.

He had been in 5 films, uncredited in each, between 1951 and 1953, and none of them are worth remembering today. In 1954, he filmed East of Eden, based on the 4th and last part of John Steinbeck's 1952 novel about a family in the Salinas Valley of central California in 1917. It was released on April 10, 1955, and made Dean, as troubled teenager Cal Trask, a star.

He soon filmed Rebel Without a Cause, playing another angsty teenager, Jim Trask, in present-day Los Angeles. His performance would make the Australian humorist Clive James, in his TV documentary Fame in the 20th Century, say, "James Dean was so moody, he made Marlon Brando look like Danny Kaye." It was set to premiere on October 27, 1955, and did.

Before that could happen, Dean filmed Giant, based on the 1952 novel by Edna Ferber, and set in Texas oil country from the 1920s to the 1940s, with Dean playing Jett Rink, a ranch hand who strikes oil and strikes it rich, but never being accepted by those who were already rich.

Filming began on May 21, 1955. While filming was going on, Dean agreed to appear in a public service announcement. Gig Young -- another actor whose death would turn out to be bizarre -- interviewed Dean, who said that he felt he was safer on the racetracks on which he had begun competing than on the roads, because the rules were better enforced. He closed by looking into the camera by saying, "Take it easy, drivin', you know? The life you might save might be mine!" (A takeoff on the more familiar saying, "The life you save might be your own.")

He had gotten permission to take time off from filming to return to the Salinas area, and enter the Salinas Road Race to be held on October 1 and 2. He drove his Porsche 550 Spyder, which he had named Little Bastard (and had the words painted on it), with the mechanic he hired to take care of the car, Rolf Wütherich. They planned on entering that very car in a race.

At around 5:45 PM Pacific Time, they were driving westbound on U.S. Route 466 near Cholame. Donald Turnupseed, a 23-year-old student at California Polytechnic State Institute (a.k.a. Cal Poly), was driving a 1950 Ford Tudor, and made a left turn onto U.S. Route 41.

Various versions of the story have Dean driving at 90 miles per hour, or even as high as 140. An inquest determined it was 55. Nevertheless, there was no way for him to stop in time. He was trapped in the car, and his neck was broken. Among the passersby who saw the wreck was a nurse, who said death was instantaneous. Wütherich was thrown from the Porsche, and was badly hurt, but survived. Turnupseed sustained only minor injuries.

This was not the era of social media, where (as with the details of Kobe Bryant's 2020 helicopter crash) pieces of information, some of them wrong, would reach around the world within minutes. Since it was already mid-evening Eastern Time, it took until the morning of October 2 for most Eastern newspapers and TV stations to mention Dean's death.

Wütherich developed survivor's guilt, depression and a drinking problem. In 1981, in his native Germany, he was in another car crash, this one killing him at age 53. Turnupseed was cleared of any wrongdoing, built a business in Tulare, California, and lived until 1995, dying at age 63.

U.S. Route 466 was rebannered as California Route 46, and realignment means that its intersection with U.S. Route 41, while named James Dean Memorial Junction, is about 100 feet north of the actual crash site, about 180 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, and about 220 miles southeast of San Francisco.

Dean's early death, after just 1 major film role, made him a legend. The photo of him as Jim Stark on the poster for Rebel Without a Cause became iconic. By the time Giant was released on November 24, 1956, his name had become a byword for disaffected youth.

After Giant, his next role was supposed to be that of former Middleweight Champion of the World Rocky Graziano, in the film version of Graziano's memoir Somebody Up There Likes Me. The role went to Paul Newman instead, and launched him to stardom.

Newman has had so many big roles, it's easy to imagine half of them going to a still-living Dean, with Newman still having enough great roles in which to become a film legend. I can imagine Dean, at 27, playing Brick Pollitt, alongside his Giant co-star Elizabeth Taylor, in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof; at 30, playing Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler; at 36, as Lucas Jackson in Cool Hand Luke; at 38, as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; and even at 51, as Frank Galvin in The Verdict.

Indeed, Newman was also into auto racing, and it's not hard to imagine his last film role, as the voice of Doc Hudson in the 2006 animated film Cars, being the last film role of an 85-year-old James Dean.

Some of Newman's other roles are hard to imagine Dean in. Dean as Henry Gondorff in The Sting? Probably not. Dean as Doug Roberts in The Towering Inferno? I don't think so. Dean as Reggie Dunlop in Slap Shot? No way. (Dean had played basketball at Fairmount High School in Indiana, but not hockey.)

And the idea of James Dean going on to market salad dressing under his name is ludicrous.

*

September 30, 1955 was a Friday. The NFL was 2 days away from playing games. The NBA and the NHL were a month away from starting their seasons. Indeed, there was only 1 game played on this day.

It was Game 3 of the 1955 World Series, at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. After dropping the 1st 2 games to the New York Yankees at the old Yankee Stadium, the Brooklyn Dodgers picked themselves up, and won 8-3. Mickey Mantle hit a home run for the Yankees, and Roy Campanella hit one for the Dodgers. Johnny Podres outpitched Bob Turley, foreshadowing the shutout that Podres would pitch at Yankee Stadium in Game 7, giving the Dodgers their 1st World Series win after 7 failed tries -- and the only one they would ever win as a Brooklyn team.

It's almost as if the Brooklyn Dodgers and James Dean are snapshots in history, tragically linked, "playing" in the shadows, and lost to us forever; while the Los Angeles Dodgers and Paul Newman are both icons of modern Southern California, doing what they did best out in the open for all to see. 

September 23, 1969: "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" Premieres

September 23, 1969: Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid premieres, with Paul Newman as Robert Leroy Parker, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy; Robert Redford as Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid; and Katharine Ross as Etta Place, a.k.a. "The Sundance Woman." It was one of the earliest "revisionist Westerns," telling the story of the Wild West more like how it actually was, than the traditional, far simpler story.

Scriptwriter William Goldman and director George Roy Hill knew that the 1960s were changing things, so they made a Western for the times. They had the vision. Or, as Goldman had Newman/Cassidy say, "I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals."

The real Butch and Sundance were active in the Rocky Mountains, especially Utah and Wyoming, in the 1890s. Targeted by local sheriffs and -- "Who are those guys?" As it turned out, the Pinkerton detective agency -- in 1901, they fled to South America, and became farmers in Bolivia. In 1908, when that stopped panning out, they went back to robbery.

The story that we've all heard is that, on November 3, 1908, the Bolivian Army cornered them in a piazza, and beat them in a shootout. It's been said that Butch was an expert robber, but never killed anyone in his life, until the end, when he used his last 2 bullets on an already-wounded Sundance, and then on himself.

But it's also been said that the army caught someone else, and that Butch and Sundance survived, got away, and went back to America, and lived a while longer. Director George Roy Hill finished the last scene with them frozen and still fighting, with the sound of gunfire all around them, giving the illusion that, maybe, just maybe, they pulled off the million-to-one escape.

Lessons to be learned from this movie:

1. Nothing lasts forever, not even the Wild West.
2. Use enough dynamite, no more.
3. There are no rules in a knife fight.
4. The man who is the best at something might not be the best man at it for you.

5. Don't worry about being unable to swim when the fall will probably kill you.

6. Life, especially a life of crime, is harder in a foreign country, especially when the dominant language is not your first language.

7. If you got a woman who looks like a young Katharine Ross, and she says we should go home because it's too dangerous to stay where we are, go home.

8. Western movies rarely tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

*

September 23, 1969 was a Tuesday. These Major League Baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 8-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. Carl Yastrzemski hit 2 home runs, and American League Comeback Player of the Year Tony Conigliaro hit 1, knocking Mel Stottlemyre out of the box after 4 innings.

* The New York Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Shea Stadium. Bud Harrelson singled home the winning run against Bob Gibson in the bottom of the 11th inning. Tug McGraw was the winning pitcher, with 4 innings of relief of Jim McAndrew. Lou Brock went 2-for-6 in defeat. The next night, the Mets beat the Cards, 6-0, and clinched the National League Eastern Division title.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Roberto Clemente went 1-for-3 with 2 walks. Willie Stargell went 0-for-5.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The Orioles' only run came on a homer by Frank Robinson. Brooks Robinson went 1-for-3. But the O's, already having clinched the AL Eastern Division title, were doomed in this game by back-to-back bases-loaded walks of Ken Harrelson and Tony Horton by Tom Phoebus in the 3rd inning. Sam McDowell went the distance for the win.

* The Cincinnati Reds swept a doubleheader from the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-3 and 5-2. Over the 2 games, Pete Rose went 6-for-10 with a home run and 2 RBIs, and Johnny Bench went 1-for-6 with a walk and 2 RBIs.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-3 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie Banks went 0-for-4.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals, 6-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Harmon Killebrew went 1-for-3 with a walk. Rod Carew went 2-for-5.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 10-2 at the Astrodome in Houston. Hank Aaron went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-4 at San Diego Stadium (later renamed Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Willie Mays went 0-for-3 with a walk. The night before, he hit his 600th career home run against Mike Corkins of the Padres.

* The California Angels beat the Seattle Pilots, 5-4 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Following a home run by Don Mincher in the 4th inning, the Pilots took a 4-2 lead in the top of the 6th, but, if you read Ball Four by the since-traded Jim Bouton, you can probably guess what happened: The bullpen blew it in the bottom of the 6th.

* The Oakland Athletics swept a doubleheader from the Chicago White Sox at the Oakland Coliseum, 4-3 and 5-3. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-4 in the opener, but in the nightcap, he went 1-for-2 with 3 walks, his hit being his 47th home run of the season. In spite of his illustrious career, 47 would remain his career high.

* And the Detroit Tigers and the Washington Senators were rained out at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. It was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Senators swept, 8-4 and 7-4. Jim Hannan outpitched Denny McLain, and then the Senators beat Mickey Lolich. Al Kaline did not play in the 1st game, and went 1-for-5 in the 2nd game.

March 12, 1968: New Hampshire (Almost) "Goes Clean for Gene"

March 12, 1968: For the 1st time, the New Hampshire Primary is more than just a formality. Former Vice President Richard Nixon runs away with the Republican side, with 77 percent of the vote. But that’s barely noticed, because of what happens on the Democratic side.

Officially, incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson was not yet a candidate for a 2nd full term, even though the 22nd Amendment would have allowed it. (If successful, he would have been President for 9 years and 2 months, longer than anyone except Franklin Roosevelt.) So he was a write-in candidate only.

Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota was a single-issue candidate, the issue being the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. Announcing his campaign to challenge Johnson in the Democratic Primaries on November 30, 1967, he said:

I run because this country is now involved in a deep crisis of leadership; a crisis of national purpose, and a crisis of American ideals. It is time to substitute a leadership of hope for a leadership of fear. This is not simply what I want, or what most of us want. It is, I believe, the deepest hunger of the American soul.

Tired of LBJ dragging things out and lying about how well we were doing, hundreds of young activists joined his campaign, having cut their hair and worn suits, using the slogan "go clean for Gene." And they hit the snowy ground of New Hampshire, doing "retail politics" for their new hero.

Okay, by the standards of 1963, this would still have been "long hair."

Not by 1968, though. Notice that even the women in the photo

have short hair, and the black woman doesn't have an Afro.

And they had lots of star power campaigning along with them. Actors Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, Dick Van Dyke, Alan Arkin, Tony Randall (not yet the co-star of The Odd Couple, but already well-known), and Star Trek's Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy. Actresses Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead, Myrna Loy, Eva Marie Saint and Jill St. John. Playwrights Arthur Miller and Neil Simon. Married actors Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson. Comedians Carl Reiner, Steve Allen and Woody Allen (no relation, and Woody hadn't yet started directing films). Singer-actress Barbra Streisand. Broadway composers Alan Jay Lerner, Adolph Green and Betty Comden.

The results stunned everybody. Contrary to legend, LBJ did win this Primary, with 50 percent of the vote. But McCarthy went beyond his wildest dreams, and finished a strong 2nd, taking 42 percent of the vote.

Suddenly, everyone knew that LBJ could be beaten, that the "Dump Johnson Movement" had to be taken seriously. Four days later, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York got into the race. And 15 days after that, Johnson got out.

But those 2 events revealed something: The McCarthy campaign was built on a house of cards. A lot of the people who voted for him weren't voting for him so much as they were voting against Johnson. With Bobby Kennedy in the race, supporting both peace and civil rights -- McCarthy hardly mentioned civil rights -- a lot of voters moved over to the more glamorous campaign of RFK.

McCarthy, who hated both RFK and his brother, the late President John F. Kennedy, and supported former nominee Adlai Stevenson over JFK at the 1960 Democratic Convention, had one head-to-head win over RFK, in the Oregon Primary, but that was it. RFK won the California Primary, but was immediately assassinated. McCarthy told his fellow Minnesotan, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, that he no longer had the heart for the campaign, and the nomination was his.

There's also an urban legend that a lot of Republicans in New Hampshire temporarily registered as Democrats in an attempt to sabotage Johnson. This is compounded by a sub-legend that some people -- including some Democrats -- were so dumb, they thought they were voting for Senator Joseph McCarthy, the famous (and completely unsuccessful) Communist hunter of the early 1950s. Who was from Wisconsin, next-door to Minnesota. And was a Republican. And was an alcoholic. And was completely exposed as a liar in 1954 by both Edward R. Murrow of CBS News and U.S. Army general counsel Joseph Welch. And had died in 1957.

*

March 12, 1968 was a Tuesday. Tammy Duckworth, who went on to become a Senator herself, representing Illinois, was born. So was actor Aaron Eckhardt.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Baltimore Bullets, 107-104 at the brand-new Madison Square Garden. Willis Reed led the Knicks with 30 points, while Earl "the Pearl" Monroe scored 37 for the Bullets.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 139-123 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit. Eddie Miles of the Pistons led all scorers on the night with 39 points.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Chicago Bulls, 139-115 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Boston Celtics beat the San Francisco Warriors, 124-121 in overtime at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.

There were 4 games in the American Basketball Association:

* The New Jersey Americans beat the Pittsburgh Pipers, 126-112 at the Teaneck Armory in Teaneck, New Jersey. Hank Whitney of the Americans, the Nets-to-be, and Connie Hawkins of the Pipers each scored 34 points.

* The Kentucky Colonels beat the Houston Mavericks, 130-109 at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky.

* The Dallas Chaparrals beat the Minnesota Muskies, 122-107 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Denver Rockets beat the Oakland Oaks, 112-92 at the Denver Auditorium Arena.

And there was 1 game in the NHL: The Detroit Red Wings and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 2-2 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

February 25, 1977: "Slap Shot" Premieres

February 25, 1977: Slap Shot premieres, directed by George Roy Hill. It is the most popular movie ever made about the sport of ice hockey.

Nancy Dowd wrote the screenplay, based on the experiences of her brother, Ned Dowd, who had played minor-league hockey, including for the Johnstown Jets in Western Pennsylvania. The movie was filmed in Johnstown, including inside the Cambria County War Memorial Arena, although the name of the team was changed to the Charlestown Chiefs, leading to the belief that it plays in the Charlestown section of Boston. The facts that their league has teams based in New England, and the Dowds are from Boston, deepen this perception.

Paul Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, head coach and, despite his age (Newman was 51 during filming), star player for the Chiefs. The local still mill, like so many others in the region, is closing down, and 10,000 workers will be laid off. This would mean the end of the team, but it could be saved if it could be moved to another city.

The Hansons, 3 lookalike brothers (but not triplets), are signed, and, in the spirit (or, at least, in the stereotype) of 1970s hockey, they start fighting all opponents. Attendance rises because of this, and gives hope that the team can be saved. What's more, the team gains confidence, and starts winning, and makes the Playoffs, increasing the hope.

Dunlop finally finds out the identity of the mysterious owner. In a rarity among sports, especially in hockey, it's a woman, Anita McCambridge (Kathryn Walker). It turns out that she is all too much like male team owners: She has found out she can make more money by folding the team as a tax write-off than she can be selling it, and so the upcoming league championship game will be the team's last.

The opponents are Syracuse, who have signed "Ogie" Ogilthorpe, the dirtiest player in the league, just for this game for the purposes of intimidating the Chiefs. (He is played by Ned Dowd. His wife, like his sister named Nancy Dowd, but credited as "Nancy N. Dowd," also appears in the movie.)

The intimidation doesn't work, and the Chiefs fight back. Their best player, Ned Braden (Michael Ontkean), had refused to fight all season long, but now, he takes his uniform off, and skates around wearing nothing but his jockstrap. Tim McCracken (Paul D'Amato), the Syracuse player-coach, tells the referee to throw Braden out of the game. He refuses. McCracken punches the ref. The ref forfeits the game to the Chiefs.

The team goes out a winner, but they can't be saved. But there is something of a happy ending: Dunlop gets an offer to coach a team in Minnesota, and he's going to bring some of the Chiefs players with him.

The movie became one of the most popular sports movies of all time, any sport. The Hanson Brothers -- Dave, Steve and Jeff -- with their long hair, their nerd glasses, and their fighting, became icons. They were based on real-life siblings who had played for the Jets in the 1974-75 season: Jack, Steve and Jeff Carlson. Steve and Jeff basically played themselves, but Jack was unavailable at the time, and so Dave Hanson, a Jets teammate, was cast, and the brothers' name was changed to Hanson.

For the record, in real life, these guys were not bad players. Dave Hanson, a defenseman, went on to play for the Detroit Red Wings and the Minnesota North Stars. Steve Carlson, a left wing, went on to play for the Los Angeles Kings. Jack Carlson, a left wing, played for the North Stars and the St. Louis Blues. Jeff Carlson, a right wing, didn't make it to the NHL. But he did play for the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association, as did his brothers and Dave Hanson. The real Dave Hanson and Steve and Jeff Carlson went on to make more money every year at sports memorabilia shows than they did in their entire pro hockey careers.

Ironically, the real Johnstown Jets had to fold in 1977, but not due to greed. Johnstown is 67 miles east of Pittsburgh. It sits at the confluence of 2 tributaries of the Ohio River. Like so many other Pennsylvania towns in the 19th Century, Johnstown became a producer of iron, coal and steel. But it flooded pretty much every year.

The most famous of these floods came in 1889, killing over 2,200 people. Another flood occurred in 1936. Measures were taken to avoid another one, but, on July 19, 1977, they found out they weren't flood-proof: The Laurel Run Dam failed, and 84 people were killed. And the Arena was damaged, leading to the Jets having to move.

By the recession of the early 1990s, steel was out of Johnstown. Today, it s a small city of about 19,000 people. The University of Pittsburgh opened a campus there, and that helped. Some of the abandoned mills have been turned into low-income housing, and studios for artists and dancers. 

A new team, the Johnstown Chiefs, named for the team in Slap Shot, played in the East Coast Hockey League from 1987 to 2010. Since 2012, the old arena has been home to a junior hockey team, the Johnstown Tomahawks.

*

February 25, 1977 was a Friday. There were 4 games played in the NHL that day:

* The New York Islanders beat the Cleveland Barons, 2-1 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Washington Capitals beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-2 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Atlanta Flames beat the Minnesota North Stars, 6-2 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* And the Boston Bruins beat the Colorado Rockies, 5-2 at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver.

There were also 4 games played in the WHA:

* The Cincinnati Stingers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-2 at the Riverfront Coliseum (now the Heritage Bank Center) in Cincinnati.

* The Houston Aeros beat the Phoenix Roadrunners, 9-3 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* The Indianapolis Racers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 in overtime at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* And the New England Whalers beat the Calgary Cowboys, 3-2 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.

Baseball and football were out of season. There were 8 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the New Orleans Jazz, 124-107 at the Superdome in New Orleans. Pete Maravich scored 68 points. It was the most points in an NBA game between a 70-point game by Wilt Chamberlain in 1963 and a 73-point game by David Thompson in 1978.

* The New York Nets lost to the Detroit Pistons, 112-106 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Buffalo Braves, 104-97 at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Phil Smith scored 37 points.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Atlanta Hawks, 96-87 at the Chicago Stadium.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Kansas City Kings, 130-128 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City. Dan Issel scored 40 points.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 104-102 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 39 points.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 123-106 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum.

* And the Boston Celtics beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 102-92 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.