Wait, How Did I Not Know“The Deadliest Season” Existed?
A hockey movie I’d never seen? Starring MERYL STREEP?
Discovering a lost hockey movie…today…in 2026…is a shocking development.
You see, in 1982, when I was about eight years old, the Colorado Rockies of the NHL moved east and were rechristened the New Jersey Devils in what would turn out to be an unexpectedly historic moment for me and my family.
My dad was a casual sports fan. Growing up, he loved baseball and, especially, the Brooklyn Dodgers. When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, the fanbase either went with them or stayed behind and shifted their allegience to the Yankees or Mets. My father did neither, and just kind of maintained a vague interest in the sport. He’d watch the Super Bowl and participate in March Madness brackets at work, but I never saw him get worked up over a sporting event. In fact, sports were rarely ever on TV in our house. Sure, we played catch and those sorts of things, but it was always sort of casual, loose and fun. My brother and I tried Little League but found it excruciating, which was probably disappointing to my dad but he never showed it. Same thing happened with soccer. It didn’t look like sports was really going to be a thing with us.
And then The Devils arrived.
It was more of a novelty at first. “Hey, New Jersey has a hockey team, that’s neat.” So my dad took my mom, brother and I to a fun and relatively inexpensive family night out. My first experience watching hockey was live, which any fan can tell you is the best way to experience the game. And I went in cold (no pun intended). I hadn’t even seen a game on TV.
We all walked out changed. To this day, we’re all still rabid Devils fans. Except my mom, who now roots for the Islanders for reasons I won’t get into and which we all collectively ignore.
But being a hockey fan in America in the early 80s meant your interest was really niche. It’s hard to fathom now, but it actually felt a lot like being a comic book fan in those days. Sure, there were random Spider-Man and Batman toys, but if you loved (as I did) the X-Men or Black Panther or Alpha Flight or Iron Man, there was precious little merch or media (beyond the comics) available at the time. When a random X-Man popped up on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, it was a BIG DEAL.
Same was true for hockey. I’ve always prided myself on being a connoisseur of the limited hockey movie offerings. Of course there was Slap Shot, which is foundational text, but my brother and I still quote Youngblood backwards and forwards to this day. The Michael Keaton movie Touch and Go? Yep. Hell, I was even into deep cuts like the Canadian TV movies Hockey Night (where a young Megan Follows longs to play net for a boys team coached by a bearded Rick Moranis)…
and The Rookies, which was like Youngblood ordered from Temu.
So you can imagine my surprise when I was introduced to The Deadliest Season. Not only had I never heard of this hockey-centric TV movie, but I had no idea it also marked the television debut of a young actress from Summit, NJ named Meryl Streep. So I dove in immediately.
To briefly set-up the plot, the movie is about a self-proclaimed “goon” (but not really) named Gerry Miller, played by Michael Moriarty — who’s been “that guy” in a ton of movies but is more likely recognized from his stints on shows like The Equalizer and Law & Order. During a game, he spears an opponent in the gut, causing an injury that later proves to be fatal. Miller is then put on trial while his concerned wife (Streep) frets and handwrings from the sidelines.
To set the stage culturally, this TV movie aired in 1977, the same year Slap Shot hit theaters, and about two years removed from the Philadelphia Flyers’ back-to-back Stanley Cup champion seasons in 1974 and 1975. These were the “Broad Street Bullies” years, where players like Dave “The Hammer” Schultz, Andre “Moose” Dupont, and Bobby Clarke hacked, slashed and punched their way through the league. Schultz alone had 472 minutes in penalties in ’74.
Slap Shot played into the growing cultural sense that hockey was a game of brutality and violence, but did so comedically. The Deadliest Season took the same idea, but with a much more sober tone.
That’s the gist. But let’s get into this thing.
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First of all, the player who (spoiler) ends up dying turns out to be Gerry’s good friend and former teammate, a guy named Dave Eskanazi. And holy shit, Dave is played by none other than Paul D’Amato. That’s right, the infamous Tim “Dr. Hook” McCracken from Slap Shot!
Side note: Canadian comic book artist John Byrne was the first to draw the X-Men’s Wolverine without his mask — and when he was deciding what Logan would look like — modeled him after D’Amato. My two worlds colliding like this still brings me joy.
Anyway, it was a nice bait-and-switch because I was certain if anyone was going to kill someone on the ice, it’d be D’Amato. But no! The Deadliest Season went and pulled a straight up Janet Leigh. Nice.
Miller, wearing a helmet as a subtle indicator that he’s not just some wild-eyed lunatic on the ice, is introduced refusing to retaliate after getting high-sticked. He’s later berated by his coach for seemingly wimping out. The coach then threatens to send Miller to the “East Saskatchewan Eskimos,” establishing a fine tradition carried on by Youngblood coach Murray Chadwick and his threats to send players to the Tallahassee Warthogs.
The coach is also wearing a sweater that is 80% collar. Ah, the 70s.
We then meet this fresh-faced ingénue. Kid maybe has a future.
Honestly, this is mostly a thankless role (although the scene where she admits that watching Miller play rough turned her on hints at the Oscar performances yet to come). The funniest part of Meryl’s performance is that she hadn’t yet completely smoothed the Jersey out of her voice, and it’s noticeable in several scenes (especially to a native). Jersey Meryl, come back! We miss you.
Anyway, Miller gets sent down to the minors, where he gets the old “Ghosts of Christmas Future” treatment from a veteran trying to hold on to the last vestiges of his career. I swore this guy was the same guy who played Mr. Futterman in Gremlins, but alas he is not.
Also, this character says he’s 46 years old.
Miller, desperate to get back in the “bigs,” starts gooning it up in the minors and eventually gets recalled. When he returns, he’s given the “Ball and Chain Award” in honor of how many penalty minutes he’s gotten. A Pee Wee hockey player straps it to his ankle and he skates around and waves to the crowd. Gary Bettman, if you’re reading this, this needs to be implemented in the NHL immediately.
Miller also learns that his friend Dave has been traded to the….Seattle Jax? Now competing against each other, the former bros get a litte rough. After taking a headshot from Eskanazi, Miller skates over after the whistle and gives him a full on spear in the midsection. It happens so quickly, I didn’t even process that this was the thing that kills Eskanazi. I was expecting something a little more brutal, but I guess this was broadcast TV so they had to keep it PG.
The camera cuts to a close-up of Eskanazi after he recieves the spear and, get ready, because you will see this face a LOT for the rest of the movie. Somehow the broadcast crew captured this insane close-up, because the police have it when they’re reviewing evidence and it’s even shown in the courtroom.
So, yeah, Eskanazi doesn’t die on the ice — he goes to the hospital, and we find out later that he succumbed to the injury.
Miller is put on trial, and so is the league. His argument is that the league profits on violence, and pushes players to be aggressive. He was just following orders, man!
I also wish we could go back to a time when the “200 old hockey men” all dressed like some kind of mafia that trafficked exclusively in maple syrup.
Although all the teams in the movie are made up and play in “the league” (it’s never explicitly called the NHL), Miller’s lawyer references the real life Philadelphia Flyers as evidence that the league promotes, celebrates and profits off primal violence. The lawyer says the league is reacting to “The Philadelphia story,” and one of the guys on the stand makes a joke about Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn before I could. Dammit.
Anyway, Miller is acquitted of murder, but gets a few years parole for a lesser manslaughter charge. His career is over, but he seems oddly at peace. The movie ends with him taking one last lap around the ice, and you can see that they filmed all of the on-ice scenes at the old Hartford Civic Center, home to the former Hartford Whalers.
Come back, Whalers. We miss you.
So that’s The Deadliest Season. Where do I rank it among all-time hockey movies? Ehhhh….maybe somewhere below one of the lesser Mighty Duck sequels? It’s not great nor is it very entertaining. It’s very slow paced, and the hockey scenes are muted compared to what they could get away with in the R-rated Slap Shot. Not to mention that the over-the-top goonery of 70s hockey works better as bawdy farce than sober adult drama. And while you can sympathize with Moriarty’s character, his story ends in a kind of shrug that feels very late-70s America: exhausted, defeated, and kind of expecting everything to go to shit anyway so why get that invested?
But hey, Meryl Streep is in a hockey movie. Who knew?
