When Brian Shaw, the owner of the Edmonton Oil Kings, moved his junior hockey team to Portland, Oregon, he named the team the "Winter Hawks" after this film. In order to save money, the team bought used jerseys from the Chicago Blackhawks, which is why the Portland Winter Hawks continue to have jerseys that are similar to the NHL Blackhawks.
Sacheen Littlefeather, who plays Pale Flower, had became famous a couple of years prior at the 45th Academy Awards by going onstage when Marlon Brando was announced as the Best Actor winner for"O Poderoso Chefão (1972); Brando refused to accept the award and had Littlefeather come up on the stage and make a speech protesting the treatment of Native Americans by the entertainment industry.
In an interview, Michael Dante revealed that director Charles B. Pierce called him up early one morning about a year after this film came out and told him that the horse Dante rode in this film--which Pierce owned and which was a spirited, powerful animal that was half thoroughbred and half Arabian and needed a strong rider to control him--had been ridden by someone who didn't know how to control him; the horse got away from the rider and in the process crashed into a tree, breaking his neck. He had to be euthanized.
According to the 2010 soundtrack release on the BSX label, previous pan-and-scan VHS releases replaced Lee Holdridge's score with a generic synth score in order to avoid paying royalties to the composer. The standard definition widescreen version streamed on Hulu in the early 2010s and the new high-definition 2016 release on region A Blu-ray both restored the original score.
Final film appearance of prolific character actor Arthur Hunnicutt. He played the character "McCluskey."