Goooooooooon!

I totally loved Goon. Read it here, or here:

For a few years in the 2000s, one of my roommates was a skinny hipster Canadian who loved Belle & Sebastian and Alice Munro and David Cronenberg movies, and so it was surprising to me that the mix he made for the road trip we took to Montreal opened with the theme song to Hockey Night in Canada. Canadians like their hockey, and I think outside some areas of New England, most of the United States has no clue what all of that is about. I think many us think that it’s just bearded dolts in mullets beating each other up on ice skates. I know that this isn’t really what’s going on, since hockey is a sport that involves a great deal of athleticism, training and skill.

But like the baseball fans who love the HBO baseball satire Eastbound and Down(or Major League, back in the day), I think even the most die-hard hockey fans will adore the hilarious paean to hockey thuggery Goon. Ostensibly based on a true story, Goon is about a Massachusetts bar bouncer who becomes the star enforcer – also known as an assassin or a goon – in minor league Canadian hockey. It’s sort of like a hockey version of Invincible, in which Mark Wahlberg plays a bartender who becomes a Philadelphia Eagle. Goon, however, is a not really an inspirational story; it is a broad, filthy and violent comedy whose clear inspiration is the 1977 Paul Newman comedy Slap Shot. Continue…