Hanson Brothers halt appearances because of coronavirus

The Hanson Brothers have taken off the foil until further notice.

Having entertained fans in countless appearances since the release of the classic movie "Slap Shot" in 1977, brothers Steve and Jeff Carlson and partner-in-crime Dave Hanson have been placed on the Charlestown Chiefs' healthy scratch list because of concerns surrounding the coronavirus.
They'll take their unique brand of mayhem back on the road again, but only when it's safe to do so.
"Slow. We have no hockey," Steve Carlson, the spiritual leader of the Hansons, said Friday from his home in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. "Our son came over this morning for some wood. I handed it to him and said, 'See you later, you can't come in the house.'"

The most recent appearance by the Hansons was at a memorabilia show in Vancouver on Feb. 9. They were scheduled for an event in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 28, but that was cancelled as the virus spread. Steve Carlson and his wife, Vicki, had a handful of other potential dates on the calendar, but they're all on hold.
Last year, their skating and signing circus received nearly 300 requests for appearances; Carlson, who's 64, says they do 15-25 in a year, and even that's a tricky bit of coordination with Jeff, who's 66 and lives in Muskegon, Michigan, and Dave, who'll turn 66 on April 12, in Pittsburgh.
"We were considering five or six appearances, looking at dates, making sure that Dave and Jeff would be available, and then the virus hit," Carlson said. "We had to shut everything down. We'll do those dates as soon as we can, but who knows when that will be?"
The three are embraced and imitated by knuckles-foiled, bespectacled fans everywhere they go, whether to play part of a charity game before adjourning to the autograph table or signing for hours at collectibles and memorabilia shows.

"The last five years, I've become a homebody," Carlson said, he and Vicki having moved east two years ago from California to Johnstown, which posed as Charlestown for the filming of "Slap Shot."
"I enjoy cooking. Vicki's the chef, I'm her sous-chef. Being in the public is what I do for a living. When I come home, I want to get away from the crowds. It's fun doing what we do. The problem is getting to the city, through the airports, to the hotel. Once we're at the event, it's fun. We love doing it, but it's work -- people grabbing you, pulling your jersey. After about 200 people doing that, you're tired."
If it's a charity game, the three will create their highly anticipated chaos on the ice, then shower, change and sign autographs and pose for photos from the second intermission until five minutes before the final siren, quickly getting out of the building before another long line of fans forms. If there's a 6 a.m. flight home the next morning, they're on it.

Settling in Johnstown hasn't exactly been a life of retirement. Carlson jokes that their new house could have been featured in Tom Hanks' 1986 comedy "The Money Pit," a movie about a home in need of endless renovation. For relaxation, he spends hours working on jigsaw puzzles, gluing the finished products together and hanging them on a basement wall. Carlson says he's completed more than 50, with another pile on the floor awaiting glue.
One is of a photo of soft-drink bottle caps, and given the Hansons' movie-stated, "Gimme a grape or an orange, but none of that stinkin' root beer," it's hard to compute the root beer cap directly over Carlson's head in a photo Vicki shot for this story.
With the break in their road-trip action, Carlson reaches out from home to provide a ray of sunshine where he can. A player he coached in high school is now a doctor in a Johnstown hospital, and the latter's call did not go unanswered.
Carlson recently signed 150 or so photos for individuals and every department of the hospital, and he'll support police and emergency workers any chance he gets with fundraisers or an encouraging word.

And he never takes himself too seriously; when you're a clown prince of hockey, a pie in the face on skates, how can you?
On March 15, from the Hanson Brothers account on Twitter, Vicki tweeted a photo of her husband in a big-box store holding a large supply of heavy-duty aluminum foil with the words "You never know," adding Slap Shot and Covid-19 hashtags.
In fact, Carlson wasn't hoarding foil despite having 2,400 square feet of it in his arms. Vicki says the photo was taken in California in 2017, though the message is topical given the panic buying of some during the pandemic.
"One day in California, we ran out of foil and Vicki asked me to run to the store to buy some," Carlson said. "I told her, 'Just get what you need out of my hockey bag.'
"Today, we have 90 rolls of toilet paper, 90 cans of beer and a lot of paper towels in the house. We're set."