Sweeney Shows Athletic Prowess

A severe knee injury during his freshman year in college ended actoB. Sweeney’s dreams of becoming a pro baseball player.

But once a jock always a jock. Sweeney, who has appeared in “Gardens of Stone,” “Memphis Belle” and “Lonesome Dove,” got his chance to play ball when he starred as the Chicago White Sox’s legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson in John Sayles’ “Eight Men Out.” And now he demonstrates his flair for ice hockey in MGM’s “The Cutting Edge.”

In the romantic comedy, Sweeney plays an ice hockey star who is injured during the Olympics and ends up becoming a figure skating partner to a talented but difficult young woman (Moira Kelly).

Sweeney had spent little time on skates prior to “The Cutting Edge.”

“I have some friends who play hockey for the Rangers in New York,” he says. “A couple of guys asked me to come down and skate and practice two years ago. I tried it for a few minutes and I couldn’t really skate so I played goalie. I had a great time standing there having them shoot pucks at me. They thought I was kind of crazy.”

Sweeney spent three months working with a figure skating and ice skating coach for “Cutting Edge.” Though he didn’t excel at figure skating, he became so proficient at ice hockey, “I got to the point I could do what they wanted me to do.”

The Long Island native turned to acting while waiting for his knee to heal. “Some people go to Europe with a backpack. I went to New York with a couple of scripts and checked out being an actor for a while.”