Baseball. American Football. Basketball. The movie and television industry love to tell stories about those sports but what about Ice Hockey? A sport you can thank for making Las Vegas a viable market for relocating the Raiders and the Athletics. Sure there’s Slap Shot, The Mighty Ducks and The Goon but outside of that where can we get a dose of the greatest sport on ice in 2024? Luckily Letterkenny’s Jared Keeso has the answer.
Shoresy is a spinoff of the popular Letterkenny series on Hulu here in the US. Like so many spinoffs before it it spawned from a popular sequence of skits spliced into Letterkenny. Shoresy, a faceless hockey referee constantly chirps at hockey players Jonesy and Riley is one of the funniest side characters in Letterkenny’s roster. The frequent and ruthless targeting of Jonesy and Riley’s mothers leaving them often speechless became more frequent over the series 12 seasons. Shorsey even antagonized Letterkenny’s female hockey team for a whole season leaving no one safe from his wraith within the sport. Shoresy speaks in Letterkenny’s signature rapid fire wordplay and wit, often stringing together elaborate scenarios in mere seconds much to the detriment of his target. Whether it’s from the bench or from the inside of a bathroom stall Shoresy always has a word ready and often gets the last. It’s a great laugh and I cannot express my excitement when I found out the character was getting a spinoff.
Shoresy is a comedy through and through but there are human elements of what happens to decent hockey players that don’t achieve the success of the international play or the NHL. As the team comes together there’s a human component for every player’s comedic trait they bring. Themes of pain, depression, and addiction are peppered into the teams ups and down throughout all 3 seasons. Small towns in Canada support their local teams with the same dedication as Americans religiously support their city’s franchise baseball teams. This humanizing element to some larger than life characters imbeds them in their environment and the teams identity. Jared Keeso, the shows creator and star humanized a somewhat one dimensional gag character into someone the viewer can deeply care about. Shoresy is an odd bird, he has his quirks and his downfalls but he has sense of dedication that makes you root for him every time he assures the struggling owner of the Sudbury Bulldogs “This team will never lose again.” Shoresy has a ton of heart and that stands out from the cast as I’m sure there are aspects of the shows events grounded in reality. Nearly all the cast members are former hockey players at some level, some even still playing in leagues today. Like Letterkenny, every actress is an absolute smoke show but they themselves have more than one dimension, a reoccurring theme in Keeso’s work, as they have their own comedic quirks and motivations that are equally as important as the games we see played on the ice. If hockey is your sport this is a can’t miss, and if you find yourself finished with all 12 seasons of Letterkenny this is a good way to keep those laughs coming. Shorsey stands shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Slap Shot, the Mighty Ducks and the Goon in the cult status that their sport holds in media.
All 3 seasons of Shoresy are currently streaming on HULU in the United States.