Rating: R | Runtime: 110 minutes
Release Date: January 31st, 1986 (USA)
Studio: MGM/UA Entertainment Company
Director(s): Peter Markle
Writer(s): Peter Markle / Peter Markle & John Whitman (story)

The only thing better than beer is tea with Miss McGill.

You gotta love 80s hockey. A time when you can be the most talented player on the ice and able to stickhandle through an entire team to circle the net twice before scoring a wraparound goal and it still isn’t enough until you can prove you’re ready to go twelve rounds with Muhammad Ali.

How many days were scripted between Memorial Cup games? Peter Markle gives Rob Lowe’s Dean Youngblood a full Rocky IV pugilism montage like he has a month before needing to beg his way back onto the team he quit three days ago. And what was the sweat budget? Between Lowe’s solo workouts and sex scenes, this production went through more water than an AI farm.

Patrick Swayze is the standout—I loved his kiss with the linesman during a brawl. His Point Break co-star Keanu Reeves only got two minutes of screen-time to spare us his bad Québécois accent. And it doesn’t get sillier than coaches caring more about murdering actually good players than the final score.

There’s also no better example of just how horrible hockey culture was (and sadly remains) than the hazing, misogyny, homophobia, and violence on-screen. As Swayze’s Derek Sutton toasts: “Thank God there is still a sport for middle-sized white boys.” To even think about glorifying this film is to confirm why it should only ever be viewed as a cautionary tale.

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Rob Lowe, Ed Lauter, and Patrick Swayze in YOUNGBLOOD.