Johnstown is Hockey’s town
By Dave Hurst
© 2015 Hurst Media Works
For a small city, Johnstown is rather well-known. It’s notorious as a place of three killer
floods. It nurtured the steel industry. And today it is popular among bikers as the site of
one of the nation’s larger motorcycle rallies, “Thunder in the Valley.”
But in Canada and Europe, Johnstown may be better-known by these lines:
“What’s the story on that dog?” asks Lily Braden, referring to the statue of a dog in the
park where she’s sitting with Reggie Dunlop.
Reggie replies, “That’s the dog that saved Charlestown from the 1938 flood.”
Even if you aren’t a hockey fan, you may recognize those lines from the movie, “Slap
Shot,” directed by George Roy Hill and starring Paul Newman; considered by many to be
one of the best sports films ever made.
This farcical look at minor league hockey was filmed in Johnstown in 1977, used the
community’s Cambria County War Memorial for hockey scenes, and made near-legends
of three real-life Johnstown hockey players – Jeff Carlson, Steve Carlson and Dave
Hanson – who became hockey’s most-beloved goons, the Hanson Brothers.
Because of “Slap Shot,” hockey fans around the world not only know about Johnstown
and the Cambria County War Memorial but come here looking for recognizable sights
from the movie, including “Morley’s Dog,” which can still be seen in a downtown park.
Hockey players from the National Hockey League level on down love playing here – at
least once – just to experience one of the sport’s shrines.
But Johnstown’s stature in the hockey world doesn’t rest upon one movie. Minor league
hockey here dates back to 1941. The Johnstown Jets played in the Eastern, International
and North American hockey leagues from 1950 to 1977. During that period 46 Jets went
on to play in the NHL.
In 1988 the Johnstown Chiefs was one of the original six franchises in the East Coast
Hockey League, which evolved into the ECHL. Despite being in the smallest market in
the league, Johnstown’s franchise lasted for 22 seasons before moving to Greenville, SC,
in 2010. Thirty-one Chiefs went on to play in the NHL.
Now Johnstown has a Junior A franchise for amateur players aged 20 and under, the
Johnstown Tomahawks, and is part of the North American Hockey League.
Johnstown’s a hockey town. But can it be Kraft Hockeyville? Kraft Foods, Inc. is
sponsoring the competition in conjunction with the NHL to find “America’s most
passionate hockey community.”
Fans visit www.krafthockeyville.com and submit a short essay and photos about their
home-hockey community and rink. The winning community will be “Hockeyville” for a
year, receive $150,000 in upgrades to their local hockey rink and host an NHL pre-season
game.
Johnstown area fans have been reacting like the Hansons when Barclay Donaldson
dropped his gloves. To date more than 1,000 have submitted essays listing the reasons
why Johnstown should be Hockeyville – far more than any other community in the
United States except for Highgate, VT.
Now this isn’t just for Johnstown’s glory, for the War Memorial is a regional arena.
Scholastic and youth league teams from Blair, Centre, Somerset and Westmoreland
counties also play here.
If you – or hockey fans you know – want to jump over the boards into the Hockeyville
contest, visit the website. But know that it’s late in the Third Period. The game horn will
sound at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18.
Then there will be a three-vote elimination for the top-10 finalists. All of the details are
on the website.
Whether they win or lose the Kraft contest, though, fans here know that there’s no
community out there that can beat Johnstown’s credentials as Hockey’s town. We have
the rink, the history, the players, the movie, the Hansons – and the dog that saved
Charlestown.