CANTLON’S CORNER: “DR. HOOK” Dr. COMES TO WHALERS REUNION  

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings

HARTFORD, CT – In the lore of professional hockey, the name, “Dr. Hook” holds a special spot in any of the sport’s fan’s heart.

At Dunkin Donuts Park on Saturday, actor Paul D’Amato, best known for playing the wild and brazen character, Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken in the classic film starring the late, Paul Newman, Slapshot, took part in the Whaler reunion festivities

Fresh from attending an event with the Springfield Heritage Hockey Society, D’Amato was on hand and eager to sign autographs prior to the Hartford Yard Goats game against the Eastern League’s best team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

D’Amato never tires of these public events.

“This is the first time I have been back to Hartford, other than taking a bus here many years ago and driving past the city many times on my way home from New York. This is so much fun today. Everybody has a smile and a laugh,” D’Amato said. “I’ve done other events where everybody is in a bad mood.”

Early in his acting career, D’Amato was hoping his more serious roles would make a big impression on the viewing public. That wouldn’t be how it turned out.

“The weird irony is a movie, The Deadliest Season, that I was in with Michael Moriarity, in which I was killed off (as a minor league hockey player killed in an on-ice violent incident) and he was put on trial for manslaughter. It was a more dramatic part, and it actually came out before Slapshot, and its debut was at the Whalers Coliseum (Hartford Civic Center), but I got more notice for Dr. Hook,” D’Amato said with a laugh.

The Deadliest Season was the second major movie and the first lead role for Meryl Streep. It was a TV movie that aired on CBS.

Slapshot was directed by the legendary George Roy HiIl. It was written by Nancy Dowd and was based on her brother Ned’s experiences playing in the old North American Hockey League (NAHL). At its peak, the NAHL was a ten-team league. It lasted just four years and had its team’s on the back roads of the US Northeast. The fictional Charlestown Chiefs in the film are based mostly on the Johnstown (PA) Chiefs.

The movie featured real people and a real story about real people. D’Amato feels that’s why it’s developed into the classic piece of cinema.

“Aristotle said, ‘you had to have five elements in a good play’ and so does a movie-plot. Character, language, music, and a story to tell. Not my theory credit Aristotle. The movie had it all.”

Slapshot premiered in New Haven at the Yale Rep Theater, which was ironic. Some of the inspiration for the characters came from the brawling, New Haven Blades, of the old Eastern Hockey League (EHL), which was the forerunner of the NAHL. The New Haven Blades all-time PIM leader (1,273 in 277 games) was Blake Ball. He played the part of Gilmore Tuttle in the pentimulate fight scene in the movie.

While the hockey wasn’t classic, it was the essence of the story.

“It wasn’t supposed to be good hockey. That was the essence of the movie. On purpose, we played poorly.”

Hockey wasn’t foreign to D’Amato. It helped him get the part. The behind-the-scenes stories added to what the film represented and parodied so well.

“My father taught me to skate,” D’Amato said. “When I was at Emerson College (in Boston) and I needed two more credits toward my getting a Bachelor of Science, then a Bachelor of Arts, so I asked my friends what courses I should take? I suggested bodybuilding, but my friends, they all laughed at me and said, ‘Are you out of your mind?

“You play hockey, right? Come play with us,” D’Amato said while laughing. “It was a club program then, so in my junior and senior year, I got a credit each year for playing hockey. Eventually, they did go to Division III during the reorganization of college hockey (in the early 70’s), then for a few years before the program was disbanded.”

To play the character he did get one piece of advice from Dave Hanson, “Keep the stick-blade turned downward, and peck at somebody. If you have it up and swing at someone, you could do some real damage.” Incredibly, I play this outlaw hockey player and when I played I was a Lady Byng player I had two penalty minutes in my entire playing career.”

Hanson had no experience in that department!

Amazingly, the original script was different than you would think.

“Nancy wrote it more as a documentary. She started it after she talked to her brother after he suffered an injury because some knuckleheads threw coins on the ice. He slipped and suffered a serious back injury and had to have to have spinal fusion.

“She asked him what type of league are you playing in? Ned told her, ‘It’s a pretty tough league.’ So based on their conversations, she developed the original script.”

She couldn’t make an ending to it, so she called up her friend, producer George Roy Hill and he said, ‘Send it over.’”

After reading it, Hill called her back and was laughing.

“This isn’t a documentary, it’s a comedy! Write the script that way and I’m gonna give this to a few friends of mine. One of those friends was Paul Newman. With Paul and Michael Ontkean on board, it was easy to get the money to go into production,” D’Amato said while recalling the background of the movie.

Newman, who was a Westport resident, always called it the favorite film of his career to work on. The scene where Newman was going for his pre-game nap following putting a bounty on Dr. Hook’s head was actually the room of current Minnesota Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau, in Johnstown.

The cape that was worn by Jerry Houser, who played Dave “Killer” Carlson in his scene where he utters the classic line, “I am one with the universe. I am one with the Swami Mahami,” was originally intended to be with Dr. Hook.

“After doing several scenes with it, I just wasn’t comfortable with it. I didn’t think it fit the character. I went to Roy to suggest he put it with another character and it worked out.”

When D’Amato stepped onto Chapel Street in New Haven following the premiere with half the audience leaving in horror and they were finished talking to Hill, he asked D’Amato what he thought?

“This was the first time I saw the finished product, and my instinct was that this was very good. I want to see it again. Clearly, my instincts were right about this movie.”

The menacing Dr. Hook was anything but a pleasure for Hartford hockey fans.

Photos by Gerry Cantlon