Saturday Night Live recently put together a hilarious NHL-related sketch featuring the Nashville Predators. But this isn't the first time hockey has been the focal point of an SNL sketch.
Hockey doesn't often get featured in the 51-year history of popular TV comedy Saturday Night Live, but when it does, it's a blast.
This past weekend, SNL put together a hockey public service announcement sketch that included guest host Miles Teller wearing a Nashville Predators jersey and saying some dicey lines that played on the team's name. Teller's character name: Chase Kid, a right winger on the Predators. We'll leave that there, but you can click here for the sketch.
This isn’t the first time hockey's generated laughs for SNL viewers. Here are three other memorable and hilarious hockey moments on Saturday Night Live.
Chance The Rapper Is A Hockey Correspondent
Popular rap artist Chance the Rapper hosted SNL in October 2019, and in many ways, he knocked it out of the park with terrific comedic instincts.
In an instant-classic sketch, Chance portrayed a New York Knicks correspondent filling in on the Rangers beat despite not knowing much about hockey and freezing.
"The story of the game is one of the main guys on the Rangers, don't know how to say his name, it has like 30 letters in it, none of them are vowels, he's playing great, which is crazy because he got in a full fist fight in the first minute of the game, but hey, as they say in hockey, 'Let's do that hockey,' " Chance's character, Lazlo Holmes, said.
He then tried to interview "Brady Skjei," but he didn't try to pronounce his name, either.
To this day, you can approach an SNL fan, tell them, “let’s do that hockey,” and they’ll know exactly what you’re referring to. Chance’s obvious unfamiliarity with the sport was a laugh-and-a-half, and this sketch will stand the test of time.
Wayne Gretzky Gets The 'Wayne's World' Treatment
Like many sports icons, Wayne Gretzky had the good fortune to be host of an SNL episode. But in Gretzky’s time as an SNL host, it was clear that acting wasn’t his forte.
That doesn’t mean SNL’s writers and producers weren’t able to salvage Gretzky’s May 1989 episode with a number of fantastic sketches.
The best Gretzky sketch came when SNL star Mike Myers wrote Gretzky and his wife, Janet into a Wayne’s World sketch where Myers (as Wayne’s World host “Wayne Campbell”) challenged Gretzky to a hockey battle and wound up winning Janet Gretzky away from No. 99.
The sketch featured Gretzky in his Los Angeles Kings gear getting stopped on a breakaway while Myers scored at the other end.
You really should watch all of Gretzky’s now-famous SNL episode, but if you had to watch only one sketch from it, you should watch Myers and Gretzky try to one-up each other. It’s still a ton of fun to watch, 36 years after it was aired.
Brett Hull Explains The Lockout
It was December 2004, and Saturday Night Live was in the midst of its regular “Weekend Update” segment, when then-Phoenix Coyotes star Brett Hull appeared at the news desk.
For a minute-and-a-half, host Amy Poehler rattled off questions to Hull about the NHL lockout.
"I really miss playing, and scoring goals in air hockey just isn't the same," Hull said, who was then asked about whether the league could regain popularity.
"I think so. I mean, with the basketball riots, the steroids in baseball, I think hockey's looking classier all the time," he said off the script.
Hull’s natural charisma was on full display here. Although many of SNL’s comedic topics don’t necessarily age all that well, including parts of that segment, it still brought out the laughter from the crowd and drew attention to the sport when the NHL was out of action.
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