Thirty years after it was filmed in Johnstown (Pa.), Slap Shot remains the most celebrated hockey movie of all time.

It hasn t lost any of its charm.

Slap Shot is a cult classic, despite its R-rating, graphic violence and barrage of vulgar locker room language.

The 93-minute movie has become a standard piece of equipment for hockey players everywhere, much like CCM skates and Bauer sticks.

Minor leaguers have watched the comical film that first hit the big screen in 1977 hundreds of times.

It has become a staple on long bus rides.

Most players and coaches can recite line after line from the Hanson Brothers, Reggie Dunlop, Ogie Ogilthorpe or Tim Dr. Hook McCracken.

I ve seen Slap Shot over and over and I never get tired of it, said Toledo Storm tough guy Robert Snowball. I think we all know it s a little far-fetched, but I could watch it any time of the day, any hour.

There are some great one-liners in the movie that have been used by three decades of hockey players.

Who own da Chiefs?

What d the old man trade for those guys a used puck bag?

Dickie Dunn wrote this, it s gotta be true.

A hundred bucks says you re gonna crack my skull.

There s nothing quite like old-time hockey, eh?

We could probably run through the movie right now in the locker room and I can almost guarantee you somebody would always know the next line, Storm assistant coach Stan Drulia said.

The Johnstown Chiefs, who will be in town tonight to battle the Storm in the Kelly Cup playoffs, are named after the fictional Chiefs from Charlestown that were portayed in the movie.

These Chiefs don t have Paul Newman coaching them or the wacky Hanson Brothers trio with the long black hair and Coke-bottle glasses coming out of the penalty box to blast someone.

This team plays in the ECHL, not the Federal League.

Heck, there are no players on Johnstown s current roster who were even born when Slap Shot was being filmed in spring and summer of 1976 at the Cambria County War Memorial Arena, still the team s home.

The hard-hitting, happy-go-lucky Hanson Brothers (Steve and Jeff Carlson, and Dave Hanson in real life) carried the banner in the movie for the hard-luck Chiefs, who were coached by Dunlop (Newman).

The team s chances didn t improve on the ice until Dunlop gave the three goons the opportunity to perform like thugs on the ice.

The Hanson Brothers would fight anyone, anywhere, unless they were in their rooms playing with their toy cars.

Nancy Dowd, the sister of minor league player Ned Dowd, who played the infamous Ogilthorpe, modeled Slap Shot after the 1974-1975 Johnstown Jets of the North American Hockey League.

When former owners Neil Smith and Rick Adams bought the Chiefs in June, 2002 they sold them prior to this season Smith bragged to his buddies about his prized possession.

Slap Shot remains the Flood City s most enduring link to hockey.

The movie in my mind elevated Johnstown, Smith said. It moved the team, the city, the building into national prominence. One of the most famous, if not the most famous, hockey teams in the world is that team, the Slap Shot team.

The current Chiefs were born in January of 1988, when the All-American Hockey League started up as a five-team league. That league eventually evolved into the EHCL that fall.

Steve Carlson, star of the Hanson Brothers, was the franchise s first ECHL coach.

He cut Storm boss Nick Vitucci in training camp in 1988. Vitucci, then a goaltender, eventually landed with the Carolina Thunderbirds, who would beat Carlson and the Chiefs to win the league championship.

A few years ago, Vitucci bumped into Carlson at a game in Dayton, where the Hanson Brothers were performing.

He skated over and said hello and gave me a signed 8-by-10 glossy photo, Vitucci said. I stuck it in the top of locker so it wouldn t get bent or lost. After we left the arena that night, I realized I had forgotten it. I m still mad at myself.

Drulia, a long-time minor leaguer who played 126 games with the NHL s Tampa Bay Lightning, fared much better.

When the Hanson Brothers appeared at a game in Atlanta in the mid-1990s, Drulia bought a copy of the Slap Shot video, and had the trio autograph it.

Drulia s wife captured his brush with greatness on camera.

It s a great picture of me and the Hanson Brothers, he said.

Not even Ogilthorpe, the bare-knuckled cementhead with the big afro who played for the Syracuse Bulldogs, will be able to wrestle it away from Drulia.

First Published April 14, 2006, 12:03 p.m.