Most people who get a movie made about their life were famous first. Doug Smith went the other way. He never played in the NHL, never won a Cup, and by his own description is “a nobody.” He also has a book, a movie, a sequel, and a kidney missing because he gave it to his best friend’s brother.
I’ll admit I didn’t know his story until I started prepping. I grew up in New York and didn’t really get into hockey until around 2010, so the minor league enforcers of the late ’80s weren’t on my radar. After an hour with Doug, I’d say they should have been.
The late start
Doug grew up in Hanover boxing in the New England Golden Gloves. His friend Adam Frattasio, a real hockey player, figured that in an era when fighting was part of the job, a guy who could box might be able to sneak into pro hockey without being much of a skater. So at 20, Doug started skating on ponds. At 21 he played his first organized game. Two years later he walked on to the Carolina Thunderbirds of the East Coast Hockey League, which he calls “the bottom of the barrel.” He loved it.
The job
What struck me most was how seriously he takes the role. The fights weren’t staged. There’s a code: you don’t jump anyone, you tell the other guy you’ll deal with him, and you both know why you’re there. Doug’s line on the drain story, where he yanked a two-foot surgical tube out of his side before a call-up game in Moncton and then got beaten by the league’s heavyweight champion: the tubes “didn’t help.”
The movie
Adam wrote most of the book, Goon, published in 2002. A Hollywood writer picked it up in an airport, finished it before his flight landed, and called his team. Doug consulted on the film and went to the premiere in Toronto. Then his wife turned to him and told him he was ruined for life. The character is funnier than Doug and a lot less sharp. He’s made peace with it, and he still hears “you’re nothing like the guy in the movie” from people he meets.
The part that isn’t about hockey
A few years ago, Adam’s brother John went into kidney failure. Friends and family got tested. Doug matched. The surgery happened at Beth Israel, and John is back playing guitar a couple of nights a week. Doug was told to expect three to five months out of work. He was back in two. He now tells anyone who’ll listen that donating is less of an ordeal than people think.
Everything else
We also covered 28 years as a police officer in Hanson (no fights on the job, ever), 21 years coaching Hanover High to four state titles and a spot in the MIAA Hall of Fame, teaching Bruins players how to defend themselves, refereeing the alumni games with guys like Bergeron and Rask, CTE, and why he’d rather drive around Boston than through it.
He finished by saying his fifteen minutes should have run out long ago. I don’t think they have.
Listen on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music. New episodes every Tuesday.
