Slap Shot Japanese movie program

I have had some personal requests to post some of my extensive collection from the greatest sports movie of all-time Slap Shot. Well, here we go.
What we have here is a program full of movie stills, mostly in colour and some that I have seen nowhere else. The big question is...why in the hell was it put out in Japan? It was put out at the same time as the film, and from what I know (which is most everything on this topic), hockey was not big in Japan at that time or ever. Whatever possessed the studio to release this item over there, we may never know.
Curiously, a quick check of the internet shows that Japan achieved their highest world hockey ranking of 10th in 1976 right before the movie came out...currently ranked 21st. I'm amazed that there is that many countries in the world actually fielding competitive hockey teams. I mean, sure there are lots more, but I don't count countries who's national squad I would actually be able to make.

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