In October of 1973, Dave Swick made a decision that changed the course of hockey history as we know it.

Swick was a longtime Black Hawks forward who had just become Waterloo's new head coach. That summer, the team had been purchased by local residents through a community stock drive. The first regular season game was a little more than a week away. Then three gangly kids arrived from Minnesota.  

A few years later, Jack, Steve, and Jeff Carlson would go on to undying fame as the inspiration for the Hanson Brothers in the 1977 movie Slap Shot (with Steve and Jeff actually playing a version of themselves in the film).

For a few days, they were almost Waterloo Black Hawks.
During the Black Hawks' first decade in the Cedar Valley, the club was operated as a non-profit organization. Community business leaders took a hand in overseeing the team, with some of Waterloo's most prominent citizens serving as team president. The job changed hands each season. By 1973, the Hawks needed more consistent, year-round management.  Seventy-one shareholders put up money, and veteran player Jack Barzee was appointed president and publicity director (as well as still skating as a forward).

Dave Swick was a year removed from retirement as an active player. He and Barzee had been part of Waterloo's United States Hockey League dynasty during the middle 1960s. From 1963/64 to 1967/68, the Black Hawks won five straight championships. Now the shareholders hoped the new-but-familiar coach could lead the Hawks back to the top of the league, even while Swick continued to spend 40 hours each week as an iron worker. There was no budget for a fulltime head coach in 1973.

"Jack would hunt up players all summer long," remembers Swick. "Jack would call them, and we would have a big tryout. They came from all over the country…Maybe half our team was already here from the year before, and half would want to do other things. To move up.  So we'd have to find five or six good [new] hockey players."

Swick had 40 candidates for the 1973/74 roster when tryouts began in the second week of October. The group included several of Swick's former teammates. Forwards Jim Smith and Chris Batley had been a Black Hawk since 1962. So had goaltender Jim Coyle. Defenseman Bud McRae was even Waterloo's player/coach during four of the team's title seasons. Dave Mazur and John Lesyshen were also carryovers from the 60s. More recent arrivals like Dale Pennock and Hal Murphy had already proven themselves during the winter of 1972/73.
 
Newly aspiring professional players may have brought special optimism to their Waterloo tryouts that fall. The USHL was in initial discussions to become a farm league for the World Hockey Association, as the WHA tried to supplant the NHL as North America's preeminent hockey league. Talks between the USHL and WHA would continue throughout the season, with periodic rumors that an affiliate agreement was just over the horizon.

Waterloo lost two exhibition games against the Des Moines Capitols of the International Hockey League, then won against the Minnesota Junior Stars of the Midwest Junior Hockey League. Swick trimmed more than a dozen prospects from the preseason roster after those early matchups.

Two days prior to an intersquad scrimmage - which would be the basis for Swick's final decisions - Waterloo's coach had some new options to assess.

"The Carlson Brothers showed up at the rink one night, and they had a fella who came with them who said he was their manager," Swick recalls. "Of course, we never heard of a manager for a hockey player where we're playing in Iowa. These kids were just out of high school in Northern Minnesota, and they were good hockey players."

Good enough to stick around and participate in the intersquad game.

On a Saturday night in a mostly empty McElroy Auditorium, 651 fans had the only opportunity to see the Carlsons wear Black Hawks colors. Jack scored in the first period. Steve added a goal in the second. Their red-sweatered squad lost to white-clad opposition 7-5.
"I couldn't use all three of them," says Swick, now a little more than 50 years later. 

That wasn't what the Carlson's well-dressed manager wanted to hear.

"He says, 'No, you gotta use all three, or none.' So we talked, and ordinarily I could have used all three of them, but that year we had a pretty fair team. So I said 'I can use them, but…' and they said 'No, all three, or nobody stays.'"

The Hawks' roster just didn't have room for 20-year-old Jeff, 19-year-old Jack, and 18-year-old Steve Carlson. On an autumn Sunday, Swick wrote out his season-opening roster without the three late arrivals. He also asked Barzee to call an old friend.

Leonard "Oakie" Brumm had overseen a couple of college hockey programs as well as a team of players at Michigan's Marquette Branch Prison. He founded the Des Moines Oak Leafs in 1961, the Black Hawks in 1962, then his hometown Marquette Iron Rangers in 1964. After a season away from coaching, Brumm was returning to lead the Iron Rangers again in 1973.

Ten years earlier, Brumm had brought Swick to Waterloo from the Upper Peninsula.

"I was construction worker. I could see a lot of work in Marquette. I only had played against Oakie, I had never played for him," says Swick. "I used to take my kids to the park every night. We'd been down there running around the park, and I pulled up to a stop sign leaving, and a guy turns the corner and he backs up.

"He says 'Swick?'

"I said, 'Yeah, how you doing?'

"He said, 'I'm Oakie.'

"I said, 'Yeah, I know you're Oakie.'

"He said, 'OK, would you follow me home?'

"I had my wife and the kids in the car, so he said, 'Just follow me.' So when I went to the house he said, 'How would you like go to Waterloo?'

"My wife was in school at the time going to Northern Michigan. I said, 'We're pretty much squared away here.'

"Well he said, 'Go down over the Fourth of July; just see what you think of the town.'

"So I came down and everything went good. I'm a believer, and I'm a Christian, and I think somebody is looking out for me, because next thing you know, I'm sitting in Waterloo. I was going to come for two or three years. I was still in Waterloo when I retired 35 years later."

Despite being just 5-feet, 4-inches, Swick was Waterloo's second-leading scorer in 1963/64. Undersized but feisty, he was a fan favorite, as well as being popular among his teammates. Swick was the Hawks' captain beginning in 1967.

Although Swick only played one season for Brumm, Waterloo's founding coach left an indelible impression.

"Oakie was my type of guy," says Swick.

"One day on the bus, we're headed for Green Bay and we're coming out of Electric Park [near the rink], and the bus stopped. Oakie says to the bus driver, 'What are you doing?'

"The driver said, 'That guy just went by and said 'Wait a minute.' 

"[Oakie] said, 'Wait a minute?!? He knows when he should have been here.'

"So [that player] followed us all the way to Green Bay. Oakie said, 'I don't care what he's doing. He better not be late again, or he'll follow us again.' He didn't care who you were or what you were, and I think he gave the impression when he told you something on the ice, he meant it."

Unlike the Black Hawks, the 1973/74 Iron Rangers had a roster which could accommodate keeping the Carlsons together.

"[Jack] called Oak and said, 'We've got these three kids who are pretty good. I think you'll be able to use them.'

"So we send them up to Marquette, and Oakie thanked me a thousand times. He said they were three of the potential better players. They made his team and drew crowds, because people liked them."
One week after the red-versus-white scrimmage, the Black Hawks visited Marquette for the second game of a season-opening road trip. The rink there - the Palestra - was an old, unheated venue evoking a barn in more than just hockey slang. In the dead of the Northern Michigan winter, the Iron Rangers would run a construction site heater before the crowd arrived. By order of the fire marshal, it had to be turned off before the doors opened as a safety precaution. The boards at one end of the ice were built just inside a concrete wall, meaning they didn't flex, even with the heaviest body check. Opposing players had to walk through the hostile crowd on the way to the dressing room.

Less than three minutes into the game, Jack Carlson was in the penalty box for elbowing.  It was the first of three trips. In the mid-second period Bob Lamoureux scored a power play goal while Carlson was off for roughing. Waterloo added another goal in the third for a 2-0 shutout win.

Three minor penalties may not have accurately captured the sentiment between the Carlsons and their almost-teammates. The Iron Rangers visited McElroy Auditorium the following weekend to extend what the Waterloo Courier referred to as the Hawks' "…feud with the Carlson brothers…"

"The Black Hawks charged last week that the Carlson brothers were coming in with their sticks high. They were looking for the same tactics last night and seemed to find what they expected," Russ Smith reported in his November 4th game story.

"Trouble started in earnest 52 seconds into the third period when [Dale] Pennock decked Jack Carlson twice with body checks and Carlson got up the second time swinging with Waterloo's Bob Lamoureux."

Jack Carlson may have been just 19, but his decision not to drop the gloves with the 6-foot, 6-inch, 23-year-old Pennock was astute. Although Waterloo won the game 7-4, it was a productive night for the three brothers. Collectively, they were responsible for two goals, an assist, and 16 penalty minutes.

"That's always the thing that bothers you. You cut a kid and then he turns around and he burns you," says Swick. "The Carlsons were Marquette's whole team, and all they wanted to do was play hockey. Oakie said he had them staying in a basement with three beds in it. He said they were happier than a lark."

A rematch the next day was more measured. Instead of 96 combined penalty minutes, the two teams accumulated just 26. The Carlsons made significant contributions: a goal from Steve, two assists from Jack, and another by Jeff. Waterloo came out on top 5-4 in overtime.



"They were all pretty good scorers. And then of course, Jack was a tough guy," says Swick. "He did what he had to do. Let's put it that way…and the other two were good hockey players who could score. Jack would go in the corner and muscle three or four people [with Jeff and Steve] standing out front waiting for him to get the puck. He'd get it there."

The Carlsons were on the winning side when Waterloo visited Marquette at the end of December. Steve scored a goal in the second period, then assisted on the game-winner in the third as the Iron Rangers prevailed 4-3. During the course of six meetings that season, the Hawks won four times. Steve proved to be the most productive brother during the series, notching eight points (four goals, four assists). Jeff was responsible for six (three goals, three assists), and Jack had four (one goal, three assists).
In January, Steve Carlson was selected for the USHL All-Star team. Top players from eight USHL clubs played together against - and lost to - the defending champion Thunder Bay Twins. Jack and Jeff Carlson were named honorable mention All Stars.

By the end of the season, Steve was tied for sixth in league scoring with 79 points (34 goals, 45 assists) in 48 games. Jack was eighth in the USHL; his 42 goals and 29 assists added up to 71 points. Marquette finished second in the Northern Division. Waterloo was second in the South. Both teams eventually lost to Thunder Bay in the playoffs: the Iron Rangers in the divisional final and the Hawks in the championship series.

Jack Carlson's goal-scoring and toughness led the league to name him the USHL's Most Valuable Player. That summer, he was drafted 117th overall by the Detroit Red Wings. However, the three brothers elected to stay together a little longer. They signed with the WHA's Minnesota Fighting Saints. A player development agreement between the WHA and USHL never materialized; instead the Carlsons were assigned to the Johnstown Jets.

Jack went on to an impressive NHL career. He debuted with the Minnesota North Stars in 1979. By the time he retired, the middle Carlson had played in 236 regular season games, stacking up 417 penalty minutes.  Steve spent most of the 1979/80 season with the Los Angeles Kings. Jeff briefly played in the WHA, spending much of his long career in the minor leagues.

However, their stay in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, made them pop culture icons, at least in the hockey community. That's where the Slap Shot script originated. The Carlsons became the Hansons, the Jets became the Chiefs, and legions of fans learned about putting on the foil, Eddie Shore, and capturing the spirit of the thing.

Clearly, Slap Shot's producers got a good deal on those boys.

Swick wasn't overly impressed by the film.

"They didn't go through town mooning people and stuff.  I don't think they were that type. That was just something for the movie," Swick reflects. "They were tough, but they didn't fight all the time, like that movie showed. I think they were just some young kids from Northern Minnesota that made it [in hockey]."

Despite cutting the Carlsons, Swick was named the 1973/74 USHL Coach of the Year. He led the Hawks to a pair of runner-up finishes (Thunder Bay won their third consecutive championship, beating Waterloo for a second time in 1975). Swick left the Black Hawks bench in the fall of 1976 but returned to coaching with a long stint leading the Waterloo Warriors high school team. 

"I often wondered in my own mind, what could have happened if I would have had room for [the Carlson brothers] to stay in Waterloo," Swick says. "They didn't look like hockey players, but they were good hockey players…If we would have had them here, we might have packed McElroy a few more times."

Hockey in Waterloo - and everywhere else - might never have been the same.