FILM · 2011 · USA
Goon
26 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (26)
- #001
Seann William Scott gained weight for the role of Doug Glatt and also took intensive skating lessons and fought on the ice.
- #002
Curt Keilback, who plays the role of Halifax's play-by-play announcer, is in fact a former National Hockey League play-by-play announcer.
- #003
The vast majority of the cast is made up of Canadian actors, including established Hollywood performers such as Jay Baruchel, Kim Coates, Alison Pill and Eugene Levy. The only non-Canadians in the main roles are Minnesota native Seann William Scott and New Yorker Liev Schreiber. Ironically, Baruchel plays an American character (a Massachusetts native with a thick accent) while Schreiber plays a Canadian character.
- #004
The scene in which Doug scores a goal with his butt really happened. In 2000, minor-league player Doug Mann scored a goal in overtime for the Central Hockey League's Columbus (GA) Cottonmouths when the puck deflected off his rear, sending them to the Eastern Conference Finals.
- #005
After noticing the lack of hockey comedies in recent years, Jay Baruchel wanted to adapt the book into a film.
- #006
There is also a miniature of Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas. It can be seen behind Rhea as she walks from the Shamrocks bus to the arena for the Shamrocks/Highlanders game.
- #007
In an interview with the hockey blog Puck Daddy, Liev Schreiber states that he drew inspiration from former hockey enforcer Bob Probert. As a tribute to the player, he taped his wrists for the film just as Probert did when he played.
- #008
The "polite" offer to fight Glatt from Georges Laraque of the Albany Patriots is actually based on a real NHL fight in which Georges was playing for the Phoenix Coyotes and was mic'd up for the game. He politely asked Raitis Ivanans of the Los Angeles Kings if he wanted to go and wished him good luck on November 30, 2006.
- #009
The restaurant where the Glatt family eats is Kelekis, a well-known Winnipeg establishment that has since closed. The signed photo of Doug (Seann William Scott) on the wall is a tribute to the Kelekis Wall of Fame seen in the film, where celebrities who ate there over the years signed their photos. One of the photos belongs to the late John Candy, a close friend of Eugene Levy, who described Kelekis as his favorite restaurant.
- #010
The scene in which Rhea sheds crocodile tears during a press conference was a reference to NHL player Todd Bertuzzi. Playing for the Vancouver Canucks at the time, Bertuzzi punched Steve Moore of the Colorado Avalanche in the back of the head during a game, causing an injury that ended Moore's career. In a press conference held afterwards, Bertuzzi appeared emotional and tearfully apologized for the incident, which cost him a $500,000 salary forfeiture and a 17-month suspension.
- #011
The character Doug Glatt plays for two teams in the film: the Orangetown Assassins, who wear orange and black jerseys, and the Halifax Highlanders, whose logo is an H with a dot on the right and wings on the left. Both are references to the NHL team the Philadelphia Flyers, which has a similar logo and wore uniforms in a similar style in the past.
- #012
One of the plot points is that Liev Schreiber's character receives a 20-game suspension for hitting an opponent in the head from behind. NHL enforcer Marty McSorley received a 23-game suspension in 2000 after doing the same thing. The victim of the incident, Donald Brashear, suffered a third-degree concussion from the cut and fell, hitting his head on the ice. Marc-André Grondin's character suffers the same injury at the hands of Schreiber's character, but in a different incident.
- #013
A former NHL enforcer has a small role as the Albany Patriots' enforcer. His character fights both Glatt and Rhea throughout the film.
- #014
In some scenes there is a Highlanders player named Hanson whose number is 17, a reference to one of the Hanson Brothers from Slap Shot (1977).
- #015
A former NHL center is seen playing for the Halifax Highlanders several times.
- #016
Larry Woo was working as a firefighter in Winnipeg at the time the production was shot.
- #017
The production had to outfit several fictional hockey teams on a very limited budget; as a result, many of the background players are shown wearing jerseys with short surnames (5 letters or fewer), which saved time and money.
- #018
The St John's Shamrocks logo was inspired by Celtic FC of Glasgow, Scotland. Jay Baruchel would later direct the documentary "Celtic Soul", which features Celtic FC.
- #019
The scene during a game against the Quebec Victoires was shot at the MTS Centre, home of the Winnipeg Jets. Although most of the filming took place in Manitoba, the scene is full of references to Quebec culture, including a large Quebec flag. During filming, the Jets were not occupying the MTS Centre because they were not a team at the time. The franchise would return to Winnipeg the year Goon was released.
- #020
Kevin Smith originally cast Seann William Scott as the lead character Buddy McKraken in his hockey-themed film Hit Somebody. In November 2010, on his Hollywood Babble-On podcast, Smith announced that the role would go to Nicholas Braun, who had worked with him on Red State (2011). Smith had previously worked with William Scott on Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) and Cop Out (2010).
- #021
John Stevenson's actor Ricky Mabe trained with a professional hockey player before filming. He also served as the stunt double for the scene in which Stevenson's character is hit by Ross Rhea and genuinely injured. The director of the 2015 film Dirty Beautiful, acknowledging that Ricky is a die-hard Habs fan in real life, placed a hockey puck in the background of many shots.
- #022
In the final game, Laflamme scores three goals in a row with no one from either team scoring in between. This is a "natural" hat-trick, as opposed to a regular hat-trick, in which a player scores three goals during the game. When a player scores a hat-trick, fans throw hats onto the ice, and cleanup crews shovel the hats up.
- #023
Sean William Scott and Eugene Levy had previously worked together several times in the American Pie series.
- #024
The Highlanders' backup goalie had his leg pads on wrong in the locker room when Doug first meets the team. The pads were on the wrong legs, and the rails needed to be on the outer edge of the pad rather than inside it.
- #025
Liev Schreiber completed a five-week hockey training camp before filming. The training consisted of three weeks devoted entirely to skating instruction, followed by stickhandling drills and lessons on the technical aspects of fighting on the ice.
- #026
Seann William Scott, David Paetkau and Jonathan Cherry appeared in the Final Destination series.
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