It was the spring of 1976, in a small western-Pennsylvania city known mostly for its devastating floods, steel mills and Morley’s dog. A Hollywood movie crew rolled into town with one of the biggest movie stars of all time, to hook up with a group of aspiring professional hockey players in order to make a two-hour satirical movie about minor league hockey.

This film had significant star power backed by one of Hollywood’s major studios, but nobody envisioned that it would become one of the greatest sports movies of all time.

“Slap Shot,” starring legendary actor Paul Newman and directed by Academy Award-winner George Roy Hill, was released to movie theaters across North America in the winter of 1977. It was cutting-edge for its time, not because of special effects or anything like we see today, but because of its hard-core “locker room” language and fast and bloody hockey action.

A cast of characters with outstanding on-screen acting abilities and hockey skills supported an exceptional script written by Nancy Dowd. “Slap Shot” skated through the movie theater circuit receiving mixed reviews, ranging from shocked and disgusted to hilariously entertained, from audiences and professional critics alike.

But years after it left the theaters to collect dust somewhere and to run as a watered-down version on the late-night TV circuit, “Slap Shot” was released to videotape so it could be watched on a new invention called a VCR. This outrageously funny film was resurrected to become one of the most rented, watched and revered films of all time.

While people of all ages rewound their VHS copies of “Slap Shot” to watch over and over in the leisure of their own home, apartment, car, bus, anywhere that a VCR could be plugged in, three young hockey players who had limited face time in the film become iconic figures throughout the civilized world.

Paul Newman had the beautiful baby blue eyes to attract the fantasies of the opposite sex, but stealing their hearts were the Hanson Brothers -- Jeff, Steve and yours truly as Jack -- through their rough-and-tumble, colorful antics on and off the ice. These three fun-loving guys were not professional actors but were tough-playing hockey players who, to this day, continue to answer calls from all over the world to appear at hockey games, community fund-raisers and a variety of other special entertainment gigs.

This incredible journey that I’ve been able to take, because I had the dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time in 1976, allows me to put on Coke-bottle glasses – chick’s love the glasses – wrap my knuckles in aluminum foil, wear long hair and continue to behave like I’m 20 years old. I even got to write and publish a book about the experience (“Slap Shot Original – The Man, The Foil, The Legend”). Thirty-four years after the original release of “Slap Shot” and 27 years since I retired from playing professional hockey, I still get together with my two “brothers,” Jeff Carlson and Steve Carlson, to travel the world spreading joy and laughter, and to revive old memories and create new ones for “Slap Shot” fans.

“Slap Shot” is more than just a sports film from the 1970s. It is an ageless piece of history that has entertained millions of fans generation after generation and will continue to do so long after my brothers and I hang up our skates, take to playing shuffleboard, and use aluminum foil just for wrapping our leftovers.