Ned Dowd

After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1972, Dowd earned a master's degree at McGill University and played professional hockey.^[1][2][3] He was signed originally by the St. Louis Blues of the NHL and assigned to their minor league affiliate Johnstown Jets, for whom he played during the 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons.^[2][4] He also played minor league hockey for the Kalamazoo Wings of the IHL during the 1974-75 season.^[2][5]

The film Slap Shot (1977), written by his sister, Nancy Dowd, is based in part on his experiences playing in the minor leagues.^[6][7] Dowd served as technical advisor for the film and appeared in the film as notorious hockey player Ogie Ogelthorpe.^[8][9][10] His role as technical advisor included training star Paul Newman on how to play and coach ice hockey.^[8] Film critic Pauline Kael suggested that the Slap Shot character Ned Brandon was based on Dowd.^[10] His wife, Nancy N. Dowd (not to be confused with his sister), also appears in the movie as the wife of one of the players.^[8]

Besides serving as an advisor on Slap Shot, he also served as a technical advisor for the 1977 TV drama The Deadliest Season.^[11] He continued to occasionally act until 1996, but focused his career on becoming an assistant director and eventually a line producer. He had small parts in several films, the last being Bottle Rocket (1996), and has been a producer of such films as The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Shanghai Noon (2000), Wonder Boys (2000), and Apocalypto (2006).^{[12][13][14][15][16]}