A Love Bomb

Once again, the Winter Olympic spotlight has illuminated hockey in a dramatically positive manner. The Canada-USA final was watched by millions who don’t normally follow sports - a golden opportunity to showcase the game in all its glory.

Skill. Passion. Toughness. Teamwork. Respect.

As a former collegiate hockey player, I am honored to have been a part of a unique athletic culture and have always been grateful for the right kind of media exposure. That’s why it was thrilling, way back in December of 1970, when the movie Love Story opened in theaters all over the country. Cathy and I were newly married and living in Phoenix.

The movie, based on Erich Segal’s best-selling book, centered on the romantic relationship between Oliver, a rich-kid Harvard hockey player and Jenny (Jennifer), a low-income “townie” girl from Rhode Island. Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw were the leads. A good indication of the book/movie’s enormous popularity can be gleaned from birth records of that era…and the plethora of newborns named Ryan and Jennifer. (Oliver was way too much of a stretch back then.)

I was geared up to see the film’s depiction of eastern college hockey, an athletic culture that had not yet been the focus of any Hollywood production. Plus, many of the movie’s extras were collegiate players whom I knew or played against.

In the packed theater, Cathy and I took our seats.

The ceiling lights dimmed.

The screen lit up.

And my stomach sank.

The hockey scenes were outrageously phony.

Before delving into my “Love Story/hockey scenes” film critique, I find it necessary to reference an earlier movie theater experience that shattered my youthful faith in humanity.

It was the late 1950’s. My parents had moved from Paterson, New Jersey to Glencoe, Illinois, a suburb twenty miles north of Chicago. The Leonard house was three blocks from Glencoe’s movie theater and on Saturday afternoons, my brothers and I would often walk unaccompanied to the matinee, a common occurrence for children of that era.

Here is an excerpt from a book I wrote, touching on those times and a particularly disheartening movie theater incident that shook us to the core.

My mother would give my brothers and me fifty cents to cover admission, soda, popcorn or candy. Most of us chose Dots because of the candy’s unparalleled versatility. The fruit-flavored gum drops were good to eat but even better to throw - either right out of the box or after being sucked on for a minute to soften them up, and make them stick to the screen or a wall. Milk Duds could also be thrown, but they weren’t as soft as Dots and were therefore a little more difficult to grip and rip. Occasionally, a handful of M&Ms or Jujubes were launched, but only when trying to blanket a section in scattershot.

On one fateful Saturday, my brothers and I got to the theater early, lured by two powerful words written on the previous week’s coming attractions poster in the glass window adjacent to the ticket booth.

“Damn Yankees” starring Tab Hunter and Gwen Verdon.

We couldn’t believe our eyes. A movie about baseball and swearing! This would be our finest hour.

Or so we thought.

I won’t go into details about the riot. Let’s just say that there was a thirty-second period of shocked silence when the singing started. Jack looked at me. I looked at Timmy. Our jaws dropped. Our eyes widened. Damn Yankees was a damn musical…with no swearing. That’s when the first Dot ricocheted off Tab Hunter’s cheek. In the blink of an eye, Gwen Verdon took a Milk Dud to the eye. Then the skies opened up, raining Atomic Fire Balls, bubble-gum cigars, wax lips, Root Beer Barrels, Chunkys, Zagnuts, Pez (and dispensers), Slo Pokes and Bit O’ Honeys launched from every corner of the theater.

Decades later, no such chaos erupted during the Phoenix screening of Love Story. The movie was a tear-jerker and nobody else seemed to share my outrage over the hockey scenes.

Plus, my brothers weren’t with me.

And the concession stand didn’t sell Dots.

Here is a video, recorded about twenty years ago, reprising my lack of love for Love Story’s hockey scenes. It’s a bit over the top, but hockey is a passionate sport…when it’s played and portrayed correctly.

“Love Sick”

(Runs 4:29)

For paying subscribers, the story of a professional hockey player who found himself cast in a number of movies as an extra, a background player.

A different role from his days as a magazine cover-boy/fighter in the NHL.

Story below.

“Howie Young - A new role”

(Runs 2:48)