RIVERVIEW, Fla. — This is one hockey league that can brag about its clean play. Not a Hanson brother in sight.

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Unlike the dirty antics of the fictional Charlestown Chiefs brothers immortalized in the 1977 film “Slap Shot,” the Big Boy Soap Hockey League tournament coming to Riverview, Florida, may be goony or even loony, but it lacks goons.

Even the championship cup for the eight-team, 3-on-3 event that will be taped for national broadcast on Saturday exudes cleanliness, the Tampa Bay Times reported. It is a large, gold-colored rubber duck adorned with soap bubbles, according to the newspaper.

The event, which will be held at the International Independent Showmen’s Association -- more commonly known as the Gibtown Showmen’s Club, a nod toward nearby Gibsonton, which for years was the winter home for the carnival industry.

The event is free -- but bring your own chair, tournament organizers said.

The 2025 tournament was broadcast by ESPN as part of its “ESPN8 The Ocho” programming.

The league was organized by Atlanta resident Nick Pletcher, a former resident of the Tampa suburb of Brandon who grew up in the area.

Pletcher hit upon the idea of soap hockey while looking for entertainment for his 2021 bachelor party in North Georgia, the Times reported.

The game apparently originated in Sweden and is called “Håsjösåpan,” named for the town where it was founded -- Håsjö -- and the Swedish word for soap, which is “såpan.”

Pletcher, 31, who runs the production company Glass Eye Creative out of Atlanta, said he was hooked on the sport after viewing a video from Norway of men playing hockey on a large, soap-covered tarp, the Times reported.

Pletcher and his friends built a makeshift “rink” and were smitten.

“Man, did we have fun,” he told the newspaper.

The tournament was a hit in 2025 despite being cut short because of inclement weather.

The players in the league are mostly Pletcher’s longtime friends who live in the Tampa Bay area.

“The guys are taking it really seriously,” he told the Times. “People have family flying in from across the country. I’ve got people calling me telling me how they’ve been training, working out, eating right.”

David Akridge, who plays the sport with Pletcher and is the tournament’s co-producer, said that ESPN’s interest in the sport allowed the soap hockey crew to film the 2025 tournament. What they were able to produce was something that was perfect for “The Ocho.”

“We had our foot in the door with ESPN and filmed a couple (of) things with them,” Akridge told the Times. “And then we connected the dots, like, wait a second, they have a whole joke sports section, we have a joke sport. This is either a recipe for success or disaster.”

What began as a lighthearted activity is getting serious.

“Those things take time, but look at the Savannah Bananas,” Pletcher told the newspaper. “I could see us becoming something like that for hockey.”

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