Rude And Crude: Shoresy Is A Pucking Good Antidote To HNIC

In our book The Meaning of Puck” How Hockey Explains Modern Canada we talked about the role of Don Cherry and Hockey Night in Canada in shaping how the nation sees itself as it drifts, like an abandoned schooner, toward the rocks of post-modernism. (As Shoresy would say, “He set the tone.”)

Since that book, Cherry has been purged for mixing politics with hockey analysis once too often. We discussed the noisy departure here. What was unquestionable then and is undoubtable now, Cherry’s stark code of honour and responsibility  represented a significant swath of the Canadian population. For that reason he was loathed by the CBC’s elites and listeners. The gap, if possible, has grown wider in the age of Trump.

Alternative views now lurk on social media. Since that point HNIC has become, Kevin Bieksa aside, a gentle ode to the Liberal worldview. A bit of boyish humour, a ton of whiteboard analysis, some trade rumours and nostalgia for the Elbows Up set from Ron Maclean.

Which leads us to Shoresy and the phenomenon of Heated Rivalry with its gay theme and its huge female crossover audience. Having dealt with Heated Rivalry here, we decided to belatedly catch up with Shoresy, binge-watching on a long flight. What we discovered was perhaps the most Canadian television program ever since Trailer Park Boys.

Created by Montrealer Josh Keeso (and directed by Rivalry’s director Jacob Tierney) it’s a wildly funny, irreverent, authentic, profane, sexy and addictive watch now headed to its fifth season.

It is populated by people, male and female, who talk hockey with its Franglais, profanity and endless insults. It would be futile to reproduce the deluge of lines that fall like leaves in autumn but here’s a sample. “My Only Regret Is Not Serving My Country, And I Think About It Every Time I Go To War On Your Mom's Ass.’” And them there’s 'What Was It Like Seeing All Your Friends Move Up A Grade Without You And Do You Use It As Motivation Today?”

Like its missing teeth, what makes Shoresy authentic is its disdain for political correctness. Starting with the speed-talking Keeso the putdowns fly. He introduces Newfie Ted Hitchcock by explaining, “If you say it fast it sounds like ‘ten-inch cock’”. His young indigenous sidekick Sanguinet, nominally the coach, is always ordered to shut up. Until he finds the courage to fire back and joins the putdowns.

Shoresy is a love note to the segment of Canada being ignored by the current fashion of faux diversity. These people are diverse as hell, but no one in authority ot the media sees them. They don’t use their diversity as a lever tho extract more power. They’re cut-throat and conniving in favour of their own interests. And viewers love it.in the melee.

Everyone is in on the putdowns, no one appeals for mercy, and the indigenous characters are bold, sexy and empowered. Characters talk only French and everyone seemingly understands them. Quebec vedettes Laurence LeBoeuf and Marie-Mai Bouchard play love interests of JJ Frankie JJ, an enormous bear of a man who only speaks French —when he speaks. And there are hot bodies male and female, everywhere.

Where most sports movies and TV shows fail in reproducing on-ice or on-field action, Shoresy’s producers have former pros who can skate, shoot and fight like the real thing. The many game sequences show the beer-league hubris and recaptured glory of guys playing for the love of it— and for each other.

The engaging engine driving the show, Keeso plays the aging Shoresy, milking the final years of his youth in a fictional senior hockey league, the North Shore League, comprising Sudbury, Timmins, the Soo and North Bay (a fifth team, from SSM, Michigan is added later). His team in the NoSho “whale-shit hockey” league never wins and is about to be folded by an indigenous family of three young women. 

He exhorts the players to do better from his seat on the toilet between periods. To no avail. He’s mocked by a teenaged cable new kid. “What Advice Do You Have For Other 40-Year-Old Balding Losers Going Through A Tough Time?' Faced with losing the team he vows to “never lose agin”. He recruits some wildly questionable ringers, “sluts” he calls therm, and some local prison guards, all named Jim. And they fight, man, how they fight.

The cultural references abound. The prison guards play a version of jailhouse Reach For The Top with inmates. The names of famous NHL players are dropped relentlessly and with awe. There are rude jokes about hand jobs at Wasaga  Beach, Ont, Timmins’ Mennonites all named Appeldorn and life in the shadow of Inco, For all its nonsense this is a show that lives in a real world, not a Hallmark Xmas card.

If the stated goal is to offend everyone then Shoresy succeeds brilliantly. In one scene the former coach, now goalie, converses with the team owner, played by the smoldering Tasya Teles, with his penis hanging out of his underwear. They do a sexy “tarps-off” calendar shoot that appeals to both straights and gays. This is a horny show.

But offence isn’t the point. (Although it makes Mike Meyers Elbows Up seems ridiculous by comparison.)  Like the telephone calls to their parents after wrecking opponents. Shoresy is a love note to the segment of Canada being ignored by the current fashion of faux diversity. These people are diverse as hell, but no one in authority ot the media sees them. They don’t use their diversity as a lever to extract more power. They’re cut-throat and conniving in favour of their own interests. And viewers love it.

And yet there’s a real sense of companionship and love among the brutes and brawlers, the groupies and hangers-on. One wishes they could devote an intermission a week on HNIC to these guys, although their authenticity might embarrass the current stakeholders. And Cherry’s infamous seven-second delay would get a workout.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his 2025 book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1069802700