Just to review, The Fan Teaser comes courtesy of longtime buddy, Pat Schutte. The cropped photo below and the accompanying clue give you an idea as to who or what the image is of. We invite you to use the Comment option to take a crack at solving the Teaser and, if you’re so inclined, participate in some good-spirited banter with your fellow sports fans. The Fan Teaser will appear each Friday morning with the reveal coming to you by the early kickoff on Sunday.
If you’re a sports fan of a certain age, the raucous – and raunchy – 1977 Paul Newman comedy, Slap Shot, is one of those movies you know by heart. (I know it was for me, as a sports writer at the Ann Arbor News covering Michigan hockey games, several of us in the press box would recite lines throughout games.)
And if, like me, this movie is one of those you know by heart, you no doubt recognized the hockey helmet in this week’s Fan Teaser as that of the organist (who took to wearing the helmet due to a very errant slapshot). The organist was played by Rod Masters and, it turns out he’s really an organist and worked games for the then-expansion Seattle Kraken last season at the team’s Climate Pledge Arena.
The scene that made Masters sorta, kind of famous, is the one in which Newman’s Reg Dunlop makes his way to the organist booth and famously rips up the sheet music to “Lady of Spain” while admonishing the organist (see below). Alas, Masters had no spoken lines in the film, was uncredited, and did not qualify for any royalties.
As we were looking up all things Slap Shot organist-related, we stumbled upon the fun fact that the Kraken hired Masters to serve as their initial organist last season. Read about his journey to Climate Pledge here. And check out his debut performance at this link.