How "Shoresy" Has Reset the Tone with an Inside Look at Hockey Culture

Hockey in pop culture is kind of a rare thing.

When you ask people about the sport and movies or TV shows, you'll usually hear everyone (rightfully) mention and rave about the movie Slap Shot with Paul Newman. People who aren't huge hockey fans got to learn about the sport, and some of its off-color ways came from that movie.

At least that's how it used to be before the shows Letterkenny and Shoresy came along.

What started with the characters Riley, Jonesy and Shoresy in Letterkenny evolved into the adventures (and misadventures) of Shoresy himself in an eponymous spin-off that's become one of the best shows on TV, streaming on Hulu in the United States and Crave in Canada.

The legendary chirps and jokes about moms that came from Shoresy opened the door for star/creator/screenwriter/producer Jared Keeso got the part-time character spun off into starring role centered around even more hockey, jokes, one-liners, zingers and a long look into an entirely different view of what hockey culture could be like, at least for a bunch of guys in a senior hockey league.

The cast of "Shoresy" features a lineup of talented individuals who have a deep understanding of the game. It includes the Jims, played by the Nolan brothers—Brandon as Jim #2 and Jordan as Jim #3—alongside legendary AHL tough guy Jon Mirasty, who plays Jim #1. Other notable characters include Newfoundland's Hitch, portrayed by Terry Ryan, the 1995 eighth overall pick; Delaney, played by Frederick Roy, the son of hockey legend Patrick Roy; and Dolo, portrayed by Jonathan Diaby, a third-round pick by Nashville in 2013. This diverse cast brings their extensive experience in hockey to make "Shoresy" what it is today.

"The way I understand it, I think whatever happened and is going to happen, I think (Keeso) had the skeleton for that in his head," Ryan said. "I fully believe that a lot of it, as we go, he gets an idea maybe about the essence of the character and the depth of the character that he's writing about."

While Keeso is the mad genius who puts it together, the intricacies of the characters all come from just chit-chatting with the players who make it all happen. And while the players have all been part of pro hockey in various ways, what makes the culture on Shoresy so wild, silly, and warm at once is part of what all those players grew up around as kids, juniors, and professionals. That level of camaraderie is an essential part of hockey.

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"I look at it like it's a team," Jordan Nolan said. "You've got a Jared Keeso who's our star and our creator, he's our GM, our head coach, our star player. If you have that person putting in the work, making sure everyone feels included, making it a real team atmosphere, it's a great environment to work in."

A lot like how the characters in the show all have their routes to ending up playing in an adult hockey league, the way the cast of players wound up landing roles in the show is an adventure of its own for all of them. From playing in the NHL to working regular jobs to landing in Hollywood, the point of a journey is not to arrive, but going from grinding the hockey life to becoming beloved characters on a hit show makes for a hell of a detour.

"I would've laughed in your face and bet a million dollars that that would never happen," Brandon said. "It's just so weird working my whole life from the age of five wanting to play pro hockey, working my whole life, getting a chance to play with the Carolina Hurricanes and play in Madison Square Garden against the New York Rangers and then being in the airport now and being recognized as 'Jim from Shoresy' and knowing they probably don't even know I played in the NHL."

Brandon getting to do all this with his brother, Jordan, who won two Stanley Cups with the Los Angeles Kings and played 375 career NHL games, makes it a family affair, but it was also an unlikely turn of events in his career. The Nolans and their father, Ted, have their group, 3NOLANS, to work with First Nations youth across Canada, but now, as part of the cast, it's an entirely new world.

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"It's been a bit of a wild ride, a bit of a blessing in disguise," Jordan said. "I would say it was maybe four or five months after I was finished playing, I wasn't sure what I was going to do in life, whether I was going to go back to school or what.

I reached out to the L.A. Kings and got a job with them, signed up for schooling, went back to school for firefighting through the P.A. and then I got an email from Shoresy, and they needed us for six days of work they said. I wasn't really sure what that entailed, but that six days turned into five seasons and now our second tour (for the Shoresy Classic)."

If there's one person on the cast who best represents what it means to be a character both on and off the ice, it's Ryan. He was the eighth pick in the 1995 draft by the Montréal Canadiens, and hailing from St. John's, Newfoundland, makes him one of a select few to make it to the NHL from that area. His character on the show, Ted "Hitch" Hitchcock, allows him to lean into his roots and play up the regional dialect, having fun with the "b'ys."

Going from hockey to working on sets and then doing stunt work for Jason Momoa's production company, his ability to tell stories, like he did on the Spittin' Chiclets podcast, all landed him on Jared Keeso's radar.

"I was driving home, and I got a phone call (from casting) and the first thing they asked was, 'Are you still missing the tooth?'" Ryan said. "And [Jason] Momoa told me, 'Don't fix it, that thing's a better look,' and ironically, the first anything hockey (in acting) I did was Letterkenny. I went and did one scene on Letterkenny, and I thought, that was it. I was pumped, I was finally on Letterkenny!"

Ryan's story and career, on the face of it, couldn't be more opposite to that of Roy's, but appearances are deceiving.

Growing up as the son of one of the greatest goalies that's ever played comes with a fair bit of pressure to follow in his footsteps, but Roy has always done things differently. At 18 years old, he took time away from hockey to pursue acting. He went to Los Angeles to take acting and singing classes and he had the full blessing of his father to do it.

"I think my father's an artist in his own way as a goaltender," Roy said. "And the way he approached to the game, there's an artistic value to that."

It was a fortuitous decision that would pay off years later as he met Keeso for the first time while in L.A. at the premiere for "Keep Your Head Up: The Don Cherry Story," thanks to his diction coach, Claudette Roche, who was also working with Keeso. Fast-forward 12 years, and an Instagram DM from Shoresy executive producer Kara Haflidson reunited them.

"I think hockey breeds that with accepting your role," Roy said. "When I got on the set, everyone had already set the tone meaning everyone's in the same boat and everyone wants everyone to have success, and everyone wants the best for each person and everyone's pulling for that person and that's why I think the show has so much success, that's what they do, they're a team, on camera and off camera. That's what they do."

Being a team on the show also led to them being a team on the ice for the Shoresy Fall Classic. The cast members literally took the show on the road last year to various NHL cities where they took on alumni in Toronto, Boston, Detroit, Buffalo and Chicago.

While they played at a couple of NHL arenas last year, this year's tour takes them exclusively to NHL arenas in Detroit, Toronto, Boston, Long Island and Los Angeles. Although most of the guys on the show played professional hockey, not all of them had the opportunity to play in the NHL.

"We come out and we go to step on that ice in warmup and I'm looking around going, 'Oh. My. God,' we couldn't believe what we're seeing, there's already thousands of people there," Ryan said. "Then when we come out to play and she was chocked full, I couldn't believe what we were seeing, it was wild!"

"Playing my first NHL game was cool but, at the end of the day, nobody really knew who I was, I was a third or fourth liner," Brandon Nolan said. "But when you go to these games with all the boys, everyone knows your character, some people might be chanting your name. It was really cool to see the love from the fans. We can't realize how special the show is to some people, but to get into an NHL arena to play in front of 10,000 fans is just, yeah, it's really special and hard to explain."