The Stargate SG-1 Hockey Team Every Fan Wishes They Could Have Seen In Action

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 35 seconds ago

Vancouver has been the Hollywood of Canada for decades. Supernatural, Smallville, The 100, Continuum, Travellers, the list of shows that film around the city are too many to mention, but it also includes the legendary Stargate SG-1. For a decade, the series filmed out of Vancouver, which is why every alien planet on the other side of the Stargate looks like, well, Vancouver. Since they filmed in Canada, most of the cast and crew were also major hockey fans, to the point where they started their own team and would take on other productions in friendly games. 

Stargate SG-1 Took On All Comers

Canadian Michael Shanks was the ringleader for the Stargate team. At one time, Shanks thought about going pro. Instead he spent a decade playing Dr. Daniel Jackson by day, and slamming Smallville’s Lex Luthor, Michael Rosenbaum, into the boards by night. Through different interviews and DVD featurettes, Shanks and crew has said they’d play not only Smallville, but also Millenium, The Twilight Zone, and even The Chris Isaak Show. If you forgot that the man who sang “Wicked Game” starred in a sitcom on Showtime for three seasons…so did everyone else. Amazingly, it was pretty good for the time too. 

Richard Dean Anderson was also part of Team Stargate. He’s American, but from Minnesota, which means like Shanks he was required by law to be a fan of hockey growing up. In the episode “Fire and Water” when Jack O’Neill is taking a hockey stick to General Hammond’s windshield, you can even see where the stick says “Anderson” towards the top. Fans today would love to have been there in the stands to see Shanks, Anderson, and Dan Shea, who played Sgt. Sylvester Siler for all 10 seasons and parts of Atlantis. Take on the other productions. 

Having Fun With the Cast’s Hobbies

Even though it’s been 33 years since a Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup (oddly, the same year that Gary Bettman became NHL Commissioner), it’s the national sport of Canada. It’s odd when a Canadian production doesn’t have a hockey team. 

In “The Other Guys” O’Neill brings up hockey to Teal’c, saying they went to a game last year, and Teal’c says he thinks the Vancouver Canucks are going to win the Stanley Cup. Instead of hockey, Christopher Judge would join Richard Dean Anderson on the golf course on a regular basis, which is why when Teal’c and O’Neill are stuck in a time loop in “Window of Opportunity” they hit golf balls through the Stargate. That’s their own clubs and balls being used dangerously close to a $100,000 prop.

Stargate SG-1 never worked very hard to cover the obviously Canadian influences behind the production, even making a metajoke about it in “Wormhole X-Treme.” It was one of the most successful, and longest-running, sci-fi productions to come out of Vancouver which is still heavily used to this day. There’s no word on if the Toronto-based Killjoys and The Expanse had their own hockey teams, but it’s still Canada, so odds are they were hitting the ice in between runs to Tim Hortons listening to Bryan Adams and watching Trailer Park Boys.