No offense to Ted Lasso, Welcome to Wrexham, or Wining Time, but Shoresy is the best TV show about sports ever. Period. There honestly isn't even a distant second.
In all my years of watching TV, there have only been a few shows that were guaranteed to actually change my body chemistry and to provide a guaranteed dopamine boost every time I watched them. Schitt's Creek was one such show. During the isolation of Covid, my wife and I watched one or two episodes of Schitt's Creek as a treat for our souls. Shoresy does the exact same thing for me.
Considering Shoresy is all about fighting, swearing, womanizing, and verbally berating others, you would think it would have the exact opposite effect on me. But those things are only the superficial surface of Shoresy. It is almost as if the creators of the show were like, "Hey. let's make a show that tricks men into watching a story about dealing with emotions, growing into better people, being better boyfriends, better friends, better teammates and better people". When it came to how to trick the men into watching this, the formula was simple. Number one: make it about a very violent sport. Number two: make it freaking hilarious. Number three: fill it with the best one line insults ever strung together on a screen. Number four: hot women. Many, many, many hot women. And make sure the hot women are half naked as much as possible.
Well that formula worked. The one liners and sports content drew me in. Although I personally didn't need the insanely hot half naked women, it didn't exactly turn me off the show either. But once it had me, it pulled my sweater over my head and would not let me go. I rationed the 30 episodes to last as long as humanly possible. I was never disappointed in a single minute of screen time.
Let's look at the formula. I love hockey. More importantly, the writer and star of Shoresy, Jared Keeso, clearly loves hockey. There are plenty of fun scenes of the over-the-hill players battling it out on the ice. But even better there is non stop chatter about the game and being an awesome teammate.
The show is so funny that I can't wait to watch it all over again. The strings of hilarious insults the characters throw around were flying too fast to catch in one sitting. You can tell that each show was a vehicle for Keeso to deliver this hysterical barbs. New characters are constantly introduced to be deliverers and fodder for these one liners. It is relentless!
For some reason, "There's an impossible amount of good-looking girls in Sudbury, Canada". The characters constantly point this out and the producers of the show make sure it is always backed up. I haven't seen anything like Sudbury outside of Banshee Pennsylvania.
But all of those are just the bait to get you to watch. The real treat are the incredible characters and their beautiful relationships with one another. Shoresy is actually a love story. Sure it is a story about him trying to get the lvoe of his life Laura Mohr to return his love, but that is only a part of it. It is really a love story between Shoresy, his teammates, his family, the kids he trains, his boss... and hockey. It is a love letter to hockey and to being part of a team.
Shoresy is a lesson for young men to watch and learn how to be masculine... without being toxic. It is a lesson in how to compete... with honor and without hate. It is a lesson on how to be a better friend, teammate, son, brother, dad, and boyfriend. It is everything right and beautiful about being a man wrapped up in a way that makes you feel tough for watching it.
Shoresy is a beautiful show wrapped in the disguise of a shallow, cliche and sexist show. It may take a while for you to see past the disguise, but once you do, Shoresy is a beauty!
