‘Shoresy’ Season 2 Sets The F***** Tone, Boys

Shoresy is such a good show that I, who doesn’t normally rewatch shows, will put it on whenever a friend says they haven’t seen it. Not only will I rewatch Shoresy with them, I’ll watch my friend to make sure they aren’t on their phone missing any of this greatness. I love this show so much and was relieved to see that they got renewed for a second season. I did worry if the Shoresy season 2 would live up to the first season. Now that it’s out, it’s safe to say that Shoresy season 2 is not only a different feel from the first season but a different journey all together.

If there’s two things you shouldn’t doubt about this show, it’s that Jared Keeso knows how to write a banger episode and director Jacob Tieranny is going get the best shots possible. What I love about this show is the anticipation of what’s to come. I may not know what’s coming but I know there will be the right amount of humor and wholesome waiting for me.

Although the feel is different from the first season, Shoresy Season 2 presents a new perspective for the Sudbury Bulldogs and their quest to never lose again. We step back into the show seeing that the team has been working their asses off this season. They boys put on muscle, their more aggressive on the ice, the NOSHO is no longer whale shit senior hockey, because this team is four games away from being undefeated for the season. Something that’s never been done ever. This quest towards the perfect record becomes one of the driving narratives for the series.

If you thought Sudbury Bulldogs’ captain Shoresy (Jared Keeso) was a on one last season, with a perfect record on the line, this man is an entirely different animal this season when it comes to keeping the team on track. What I like about this season is that there are issues with success. This season we see obstacles that come from team winning. There are multiple fires that need to be put out with this team. Whenever I talk about Shoresy as a show, it’s so easy to compare it to Ted Lasso. As characters Shoresy and Ted Lasso are at opposite ends of the spectrum in their approaches to winning. Ted Lasso wants to make you a better person and then a better player. Shoresy wants to bring that dog out of you and see you give it everything you got. Two different approaches, but the goals are somewhat similar.

Spoilers ahead folks!

Shoresy Season 2 and the Excellence of Execution

Remember in the Dark Knight Rises, Bane fights Batman and notices that the years away from crime fighting has made Batman’s fighting skills soft. Bane then tells him, “Victory has defeated you.” Oooof. We see that Shoresy’s team the Sudbury Bulldogs now faces the same issue. They got the best record in the league, they are on top, but you gotta stay on top. The team owner Nat (Tasya Teles) and her proteges, Miigwan (Keilani Rose) and Ziigwan (Blair Lamora) bring up these concerns up to Shoresy (Jared Keeso) and Sanguinet (Harlan Blayne Kytwayhat). The concerns are that they got teams wanting to take out their record and players smashing too much ass, specifically Goody (Andrew Antsanen) and Dolo (Jonathan-Ismaël Diaby). Goody and Dolo already playing a round in the sheets, so they got no legs in the 3rd round of the games. The Jims (Jon Mirasty, Brandon Nolan, and Jordan Nolan) are always late leaving right after games, and their goalie, Michaels (Ryan McDonell) is acting weird (even tho “goalies are always weird”).

What I truly love about this season is how Shoresy and Sanguinet have to make sure the team is still a well-oiled machine. They win a game, but that shit ain’t enough; Shoresy goes off on how everyone played. My man slapping sticks (ice cream cones) out folks hands that ain’t play, or in Fish’s (Jacob Smith) case, who used to score a goal a game, hasn’t score at all in four games. When Fish asks, “What happened to do they don’t ask how, they ask how many,” Sanguinet and Shoresy get in his face and tell’em “I’M (HE’s) ASKING HOW!”. What I love about this is that we see Sanguinet and Shoresy working hand in hand keeping the team in shape. Yet, when the team is getting rocked, and the team is stanking, It’s Fish that Sanguinet bets his chips on.

Fish is told it’s on him, and that if he doesn’t score he’s cut. He thinks they’re messing with him, but Shoresy is burning a hole through him, deathly serious. I love this scene as Fish is hearing the news, then we see him on the ice taking a knee in front of his team as if this is his trial by fire. When he comes through, he tells Shoresy and Sanguinet how that wasn’t cool and not to fuck with him like that again. When Nat asks about the situation, she says that was going too far. Sanguinet informs her that he wasn’t joking. Yeah, that’s how serious shit is. I love this scene, because Shoresy tells Nat, just as he tells Fish who is rightfully upset, “Didn’t see you complaining making the game winning shot. Didn’t see you complaining when the team was cheering you. Won’t see you complaining when you getting your dink sucked later…. Or a maybe I will. Fuck it, I’ll watch if he wants me to.”

Ironically, up until this episode, Shoresy kept asking Fish if he was ever going to score again. He was riding them hard. Then when it came time for him to step up and Fish calls him out on it, Shoresy says, I know what I said. Now it’s time for you to score us that goal. Where some may see this as putting on too much pressure for results, I see it as just right. Fish needed something to bring him back to scoring goals, sometimes when it’s crunch time, you gotta put someone’s feet to the fire in hopes of getting the results you need. Shoresy and Sanguinet understand this and are willing to bet the farm on implementing this on the team.

The Best There is, Best There was, Best There Ever will Be

Outside of the team we get to see a portion of Nat’s love life, how Sanguinet and Miigwan interact now that they’re dating, JJ Frankie JJ (Max Bouffard) being messy once again, Hitchcock (Terry Ryan) looking for love, and of course Shoresy pining after Laura Mohr (Camille Sullivan). Communication takes center focus as Shoresy has to figure out what’s going on with the Jims and Michaels. The dope part of this part is how they address the issue facing the players as a team in order to find solutions. There is no big bad to face this time around as the team stepped their game up; however, the Soo have an American team as well: the Soo Hunt. This team isn’t bad, they just Americans that wanna be the best at Hockey because American’s always wanna be the best at everything. However, the Sudbury Bulldogs are en route achieving Bret Hart status. Being the best there is, was, or ever will be. All they have to do is choose that greatness and work towards it.

There is one scene in Shoresy where they are up against a team and a player hits Michaels in the face with his stick. Shroesy warns the player if he does it again, he’s dead. That motherfucker did it again, and what happens is probably the most violent scene we see in the season. When I say there was blood on the ice, I mean it looked like someone spilled a bloody margarita on the ice. It was that bad but also an incredible scene about self-governing that hockey players do. We’ve seen Shoresy chirp (insult) everyone he’s against, get under their skin, sucker punch, do nut shots, slice an ankle, and more. This man has done really dirty shit, but he never did that to a team’s goalie. Ther are some things even Shoresy won’t do. So seeing a player do this to his goalie is a huge fucking no. Shoresy warned him, and when mans didn’t take heed, not only did he get dropped but he got dragged to the team’s box for everyone to get licks in.

A Whole lot of Wholesome

Shoresy does a lot to focus on the action on the ice, but they do an incredibly balanced job of showing the action off the ice. We see this backstory behind why Shoresy stays in hockey even tho he’s got a decade on most players. “It’s the only place I can really be me.” There’s the return of the Shoresy’s family, which was an incredible surprise. His niece brings her boyfriend over, Shoresy is kindly grilling him (especially hearing he’s an e-sports player) and we see here when his sister starts telling embarrassing stories of him in his youth, Shoresy can take it just as much as he dishes it. The man smiles as his sister talks about him kissing a woman that was actually a man (“What can I say, she was handsome”) and him running away from a girl crying. In the end, we see the family proud of what his team is on the verge of doing.

My favorite part comes when we see exactly how the sexy calendar for the team came about. Shoresy arrives, spray tanned (mans is orange), and ready to get oiled up. He’s going the extra mile for this photo shoot, expected everyone else to do the same, and is surprised when he sees the players with their shirts on. Everyone is laughing at him, and he’s defending his case until told by Nat why he’s going this far when he’s already put on muscle, had the team do the same, and is doing everything in his power to keep this winning streak going. To which Shoresy says, “Because you kept the team going and didn’t give up on us. So I’m going to go above and beyond for you.” That part got me, I was choked up as Nat tells the team to go and get tans, then tells Shoresy, “you’re up first, captain.”

I love this show me, no show (no pun) has fucking heart and grit like this. I mentioned that season one feels different from season 2. Yes, they’ve achieved the impossible and turned things around, but once again, there’s another peak on the mountain they can achieve as they head for championships and facing off against even better teams. The Sudbury Bulldogs were fucking jokes, Shoresy said, they would never lose again, then they lost. Nat said she’d fold the team, but the team finally hated to lose, the town was behind them, so she couldn’t pull the trigger, and now they’re on top of their game… with a chance to be legendary. Nat put her faith in Shoresy and this team, and because of that he has gone above and beyond.

Shoresy Season 2 is must-watch television. That’s all I can really say man. Jared Keeso’s pen game never stopped being flames. I love how there’s running gags through the series. How he’ll have a character mention something just for another person to say an episode later (to hammer home that point). Jacob Tierney’s long shots are my favorite part of the series, the way he captures teams and individuals throughout the show is amazing. I found myself slapping the table when watching games, hoping the Bulldogs pull out a win. The way he pulls in close ups, like when Nat saw a slut (hockey player), she was ready to take down.

Shoresy is a show that goes above and beyond, just like the players on the ice. They’ve been confirmed for a third season, which means this show is one season away from a hat trick. You can check out Shoresy season 2 streaming on Hulu, right now.

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