| Director | Richard Martin |
|---|---|
| Budget | $6 million |
| Box office | $28 million |
In the fictional Rust Belt city of Charlestown, Pennsylvania, the impending closure of the steel mill, which will force layoffs of 10,000 workers, threatens the town's minor league ice hockey team. The Charlestown Chiefs is struggling with a losing season, incompetent players, and increasingly hostile spectators. Player-coach Reggie Dunlop and most of his players have no employment prospects outside hockey. As a money-saving measure, the team's penny-pinching manager, Joe McGrath, signs the young, immature Hanson Brothers.
After seeing Charlestown fans responding positively to violence, Dunlop unleashes the Hansons, who brutalize opposing teams with violent play and on-ice brawling. He also leaks a fabricated story about a potential sale to a community in Florida to motivate the team. Games devolve into bench-clearing brawls and Dunlop offers a $100 bounty to any player who assaults Tim McCracken, the player-coach of the rival Syracuse team.
The brawls boost attendance, and the Chiefs rise in the standing to become contenders for the league championship though Ned Braden, the team's top scorer, refuses to play violently. Dunlop attempts to get him to fight by exploiting his marital troubles and encourages Braden's wife Lily to leave him. Dunlop's estranged wife Francine wants a divorce and a job on Long Island. After Lily moves in with Dunlop to get away from Braden, Dunlop takes her to meet Francine, and the women commiserate over their difficulties in being married to hockey players.
Dunlop meets the reclusive team owner, Anita McCambridge, and learns his efforts to increase the team's popularity have been for naught, as McCambridge would make more money if she folded the team as a tax write-off. Dunlop decides to abandon the strategy of violence for the championship game, believing it to be his last, and the rest of the team agrees. Their opponents from Syracuse have stocked their team with violent "goons.” After the Chiefs are crushed during the first period while playing a non-violent style and getting booed by their fans, McGrath tells them that National Hockey League scouts, whom he invited, are watching the game.
Dunlop and the rest of the team, except Braden, switch back to brawling, much to the delight of the fans. When Braden sees Lily cheering for the Chiefs, he performs a striptease on the ice which breaks up the fights. When McCracken protests this "obscene" demonstration and sucker-punches the dismissive referee, Syracuse is disqualified and the Chiefs named champions.
Lily, Braden, and Dunlop ride in the backseat of a car during the Charlestown victory parade. Francine appears driving a loaded trailer, heading to a new life in New York. Dunlop runs to her car and tells her he's now the player-coach for a Minnesota team, intending to bring his teammates from the folded Chiefs with him, and inviting her to join him if New York doesn't work out. She drives away without replying, and when Dunlop returns to the car, assures Lily that she'll be joining him in Minnesota.