It’s kind of a miracle that a show like Shoresy exists when you think about it.
It’s a spin-off of the hit show Letterkenny and the history of spin-offs can be pretty spotty. For every great one, such as Better Call Saul and Frasier, there are countless others that floundered almost immediately after the first episode.
Television is a hard and fickle business, but imagine having a cult hit show made in Canada and doing a spin-off starring one of the side characters, who, for lack of a better description, was a complete jackass.
This is exactly what creator Jared Keeso had in mind with Shoresy. As successful as Letterkenny became, what he’s built with the spin-off not only proves spin-offs can work, but that one centered on sports—hockey, no less—can defy the odds stacked against it.
The series is now five seasons deep following the release of the latest six episodes, and despite the jokes, insults, and one-liners that make up much of the writing, it’s a show overflowing with heart, centered on a hockey team in Sudbury, Ontario.
The show’s success has allowed them to branch out with the Shoresy Classic over the past two years, where the cast—featuring more than a few former pro players—faces NHL alumni across North America.
Their most recent tour sold more than 69,000 tickets, from Boston to Toronto to Detroit, across Western Canada and into Los Angeles.
Taking the show on the road without knowing what to expect was just another part of what it’s been like simply trying to get a show off the ground.
“You hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” Keeso told Bleacher Report via email.
“Our producer, Kara Haflidson, had the idea to reach out to NHL alumni teams and I was thrilled by their enthusiasm to partner with us. I was shocked at how many of them watched the show. I would have never thought we’d play NHLers. We’re just nut sacks from Sudbury.”
Courtesy: New Metric Media
Going on tour doesn’t happen without the show being such a runaway success, of course. Hockey isn’t the most popular sport, but it’s turned into a great setting for drama and humor in pop culture thanks to Shoresy and Heated Rivalry.
It’s not as if people don’t know hockey; it just doesn’t have the same overwhelming attention as other big sports in America.
A show like Shoresy built around the title character, who might have driven fans of Letterkenny crazy, was in itself a wild concept, one that shows that if you can do it right, it’s more than worth doing.
Keeso conceded that it was difficult to build a show around a character like that, but the results are hard to ignore.
“I’m having too much fun to dwell on it,” he said.
Doing a show about hockey and, tangentially, its culture, with a cast featuring former NHL players such as Terry Ryan, Jordan Nolan, Brandon Nolan, Jon Mirasty, Frederic Roy, and Jonathan Diaby, could have proved disastrous.
After all, these guys were hockey players, not actors, and asking pro athletes to develop acting chops could take a while. Just like with the show itself, though, there’s a not-so-secret sauce in it all.
“This is where the fun comes in,” Keeso said. “Picture an actual hockey dressing room and the relentless chirping that goes on. Now put all those guys on a film set (in makeup) to be vulnerable in front of each other and play pretend. We laugh so hard.”
Courtesy: New Metric Media
It’s not so much about asking the guys to be funny as it is about just being themselves, and setting hockey players loose in a hockey dressing room lets them do what comes naturally: ribbing each other.
It seems like such an easy formula to follow, and yet Shoresy is the one hockey show that has made it work consistently every season. The drama of the team, the schedule and their personal lives allows for the whole thing to grow beyond the jokes, but the boys being boys and the women giving it right back make it all go.
Not that any of it has been easy, of course.
“The hard part was the 10 years I spent auditioning daily, scraping for rent and working multiple jobs to get here,” Keeso said. “Making a TV show that people love, with people I love, is an honor and a privilege. This is dreamland for us.”
Delivering a show that’s truly beloved is a remarkable feat, and creating one with such a devoted fanbase that fills full arenas to watch them play charity hockey against NHL stars of the past puts it all in a truly incredible perspective.
Things like that don’t just happen, never mind in Hollywood. But when it comes to hockey, hard work and putting a dream together, it’s a special kind of magic.
Courtesy: New Metric Media
“The women of Shoresy (Tasya Teles, Blair Lamora and Keilani Rose) were there for the final game of this tour in Vancouver,” Keeso said. “It got pretty real with all of us on the bench together in front of 9,000 on a Monday night, after all these years making the show. I am most proud of the relationships.”