Shoresy

Premise

After losing twenty straight games and running dead last in the four team Triple A-level Northern Ontario Senior Hockey Organization (NOSHO), the Sudbury Bulldogs are faced with being completely shut down. In an attempt to save the team, veteran player Shore ("Shoresy") makes a bet with team general manager Nat that the team will never lose again if he is given a chance to take control. With the help of new coach Sanguinet, a roster of new players, and the dissolution of the team on the line, Shoresy sets out to prove that the Bulldogs can play as a team, sell tickets to games, and make a name for themselves. He rebuilds the team with veteran players who share his philosophy that it is not enough to "love to win", they have to "hate to lose".

Cast

Main

Jared Keeso as Shoresy, a centre hockey player recruited to the Sudbury Bulldogs from Letterkenny, who later becomes the team's coach

Tasya Teles as Nat, the owner and general manager of the Sudbury Bulldogs

Harlan Blayne Kytwayhat as Sanguinet (seasons 1–3), a former hockey player and the team's assistant coach, later promoted to head coach

Blair Lamora as Ziigwan (AKA Ziig), the assistant general manager of the team

Keilani Elizabeth Rose as Miigwan (AKA Miig), Ziig's sister and fellow assistant general manager

Ryan McDonell as Mark Michaels, a goaltender who serves as the Bulldogs' coach when Shoresy arrives

Recurring

Maclean Fish as Jory Jordan, a precocious young reporter who works for the Sudbury Kids Sports Report

Jacob Smith as Fish (seasons 1–3), a right wing player for the Bulldogs

Camille Sullivan as Laura Mohr, a sports journalist and Shoresy's love interest

Max Bouffard as Jean-Jacques François Jacques-Jean "JJ Frankie JJ" (seasons 1–3), a right wing player for the Bulldogs

Andrew Antsanen as Brant "Goody" Goodleaf, a left wing player for the Bulldogs

Jonathan-Ismaël Diaby as himself (AKA Dolo), a defenseman for the Bulldogs who only communicates in French

Terry Ryan as Ted "Hitch" Hitchcock, a defenseman for the Bulldogs

Laurence Leboeuf as herself (seasons 1–3), JJ Frankie JJ's on-and-off love interest

Jon Mirasty as Jim Seesequasis, a centre for the Bulldogs

Brandon Nolan as Jim Pine, a right wing player for the Bulldogs

Jordan Nolan as Jim Pine (no relation), a left wing player for the Bulldogs

Eliana Jones as Mercedes Policetri, a nightlife influencer in Sudbury

Keegan Long as Liam, a high school hockey player

Bourke Cazabon as Cory, a high school hockey player

Guests

Scott Thompson as Shoresy's foster father

Jonathan Torrens as Rémy Nadeau, a Québécois play-by-play hockey commentator

Jacob Tierney as Benoit "Benny" Brodeur, Nadeau's broadcast partner and color commentator

Kim Cloutier as Anik Archambault, a television host who often works with Shoresy

Tessa Bonhomme as herself

Jay Onrait as himself

Brian "Rear Admiral" McGonagall as himself

Lysandre Nadeau as herself

Rêve as herself

Wayne Gretzky as himself

Marie-Mai as herself

Sean Avery as himself

Production and development

Shoresy is played by Jared Keeso, but within Letterkenny he was only seen in contexts that obscured his face as Keeso simultaneously played the leading role of Wayne. Justin Stockman of Bell Media explained the decision to proceed with a Shoresy spin-off by noting that he is one of the most popular characters in Letterkenny merchandising, and acknowledging the creative potential involved in building on the story of a character about whom very little is known in the original show.

Production on the series launched in November 2021 in Sudbury. Production locations have included the Sudbury Community Arena.

During the tenth-season Letterkenny episode "VidVok", Tanis explains to Wayne that she managed to get Shore a position on the Sudbury Bulldogs and will be moving soon, setting up the Shoresy series. The show's first teaser trailer was released in February 2022.

Like Letterkenny, the show has received praise for its efforts to include fully rounded and nuanced portrayals of its First Nations characters, which was accomplished in part by including actress Kaniehtiio Horn, who plays Tanis in the original Letterkenny, as a producer tasked in part with ensuring that the indigenous characters were written and portrayed realistically. The series has also received positive notice for inverting the stereotypical gender dynamics in hockey by placing women in power positions as the team's manager, her two assistants and the sports journalist who covers the team for The Sudbury Star, noting that in Letterkenny "Part of the secret ... is that although the men seem to be the focal point of the story and the women seem to be objectified in endless slo-mo walk-ups, the men are all trapped in different stages of arrested development and the women are truly in charge."

While more suburban and rural parts of Sudbury serve as a backdrop for the fictional town of Letterkenny in the series, the central urban core of the city is fully represented as itself in Shoresy. The city is featured prominently in the new series and "the dialogue is rife with quippy mentions of Sudbury landmarks". The various hockey scenes take place at the Sudbury Community Arena, complete with advertising for local businesses on the boards and the Sudbury Wolves logo can be seen in several background shots. The series also features numerous real-life downtown Sudbury food and entertainment venues, including the Coulson nightclub, Peppi Panini and the Laughing Buddha.

Episodes

Critical response

In advance of the series premiere, John Doyle of The Globe and Mail praised the show, writing that "In the spirit of Letterkenny, the humour is funny, mad, droll, childish and spiky. Full of salty Canadian vernacular, it soars. There are more visual jokes than you might find in the average episode of Letterkenny, but the flavour is the familiar tone of boldly irreverent, and it is sometimes slashing satire with more puns than you can count. In an expected but delightful way, Shoresy is Letterkenny refreshed. Who knew that a series that opened some years ago with the line, 'A coupla hockey players came up the lane way the other day,' could eventually unleash this great spinoff?"

Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter described the series as essentially an updated version of the 1977 film Slap Shot, praising it both for humanizing the character of Shoresy, and for placing women and First Nations characters in positions of strength. Michael Hollett of NEXT Magazine wrote that Shoresy is "a fast-paced show with a more linear narrative and explicit plot than Letterkenny", and praised it for lacking the stiffness and awkwardness that often plagues television series about hockey.