Ice Hockey Books

Winning the Memorial cup is probabally he most difficult trophy to win. You must win the playoffs of your own league and then
qualify for an eentual sudden death game to win the cup. If in the last game you meet a hot goaler you have no second chance.
This book takes us back to 1919 and proceeds in great detail
all the major events and games leading up to and including the championship games. It lists the rosters of all winners which
is great for a lot of the winners who for different reasons did not go on to play pro hockey or were never again part of a winning team. It should provoke discussions about who the greatest junior team of all time was or for some deciding the best in different eras. My personal choice is the 1969 Montreal
junior Canadiens led by Gilbert Perreault,Marc Tardif, Richard Martin and Andre Dupont followed closely by the 1964 Torontoi Marlboros led by Mike Walton , Wayne Carleton, Peter Stemkowski
Gary Dineen, Ron Ellis. The Marlboros DID lose one game in the eastern finals . In the book on page 129 the authors state that
the marlies swept N.D.G.and went undefeated throughout the Memorial Cup playoffs. In fact the N.D.G. team coached by the legendary Sotty Bowman beat the Marlies 6-4 at the Montreal
Forum in what probabally was one of the biggest upsets as well as being one of the greateest coaching jobs by Bowman which has
gone nearly undocumented. I'd love to hear from him on the subject.

Regards

Claude Rioux

This book was okay for an elementary/middle school child's library. It contained more historical information of world events than actual information about the games played by the 1980 Olympic Hockey team. Very little information was given about the players themselves or their sentiments at the time.

The Student Body is an excellent academic mystery. The college setting and English Dept. intriques come across as authentic. But as an old-fashioned mystery, The Student Body has a number of flaws.

Number one big problem is the identity of the murderer. I had that bagged very early in the novel. Four scenes held all the essential clues.

Then there is another problem with a supposed major clue that the amateur sleuth stumbles across much later in the book. I simply can't see this

particular clue working as well as it does.

And, then there is the irritating issue of the setting of Bowmouth College. How big is Bowmouth? The map provided in the frontispiece depicts a little place. And, the early chapters seem to indicate a smallish Maine liberal arts college with a small medical school. But as the story progresses, Bowmouth College seems to grow and grow. By about page 200, the college is sporting a Faculty of Forestry. And, there are libraries everywhere. In short, the setting just isn't nailed down.

As for the sleuth Sarah Deane, I kept forgetting her name. For some reason, Sarah just isn't memorable enough.

All in all, an interesting story but a bit too transparent with a dumb ending.

Given that this is virtually the ONLY book in existence concerning women's ice hockey, I'd give this book a 5. The authors and publisher deserve plaudits for writing about this subject. On the downside, this book, when compared to objective standards of quality and editing, stands in need of improvement and could have benefited from further refinement. One example: One entire chapter is devoted to just one woman from the sport (out of many that could have been chosen) who blathers on and on and on about her views of ice hockey. (Who cares?) This chapter of the book reads as if the two writers just set a tape recorder down in front of the person and then typed everything she said verbatim. If I wanted to read a magazine interview, I could have gone elsewhere such as reading women's ice hockey stories and interviews in some of the hockey trade journals. A book is supposed to be a SYNTHESIS of various points of view. I appreciate the two authors showing me their raw interview material but this kind of self-promotion by one individual female ice hockey player belongs in an appendix at the BACK of the book, and NOT in a book chapter. Certainly everyone would agree that this kind of monologue by one single female ice hockey player SHOULD NOT HAVE CONSTITUTED AN ENTIRE BOOK CHAPTER! C'mon! Let's do some of our own writing and research. And what qualifications does this person have to presume to speak for the entire sport anyway? Second point of criticism: While the story of women's ice hockey is in part a story of sexism and the struggle between the sexes, I think the tone of the book and the title could have been less adversarial and resentful toward the existence of men's ice hockey. "Too Many Men on the Ice" makes it seem like a zero sum game. Can't men as well as women play the sport? The title suggests not. In fact, the title and the tone of the book suggest that there are "too many men on the ice" playing the sport to the exclusion of women. This is not what wome! n's ice hockey is about. There should be enough room in the sport for both men and women to play ice hockey. This isn't a war between the sexes. Women just want to be recognized and granted equal rights to train, get appropriate coaching, ice time, etcetera just like the men. Do the authors really believe that there are "too many men on the ice?" If so, I am disappointed in them as people and as female journalists and authors. The authors' book title and their hostile and adversarial tone toward male ice hockey players undercuts what these fine women players stand for: No one should be saying that there are "too many men on the ice!" Nor should anyone ever say that there are "too many women on the ice." There should be enough ice time for everyone who wants to play the sport. The book comes off as a well intentioned but somewhat superficial attempt to cover the sport. I suspect other writers will come along and pick up where these two left off. But nonetheless, hats off to these two young authors for devoting themselves to a worthy subject.

All in all, this is an excellent historical reference that chronicles the rise of hockey in Europe, and how that affected the Canadian game.
However, a glaring omission is that there is not a mention of the late great World Hockey Association. I for one am tired of hearing that Borje Salming paved the way for Europeans to play in the NHL. What about the trailblazing Swedes and Finns ie Anders Hedberg, Ulf Nilsson, Lars Erik Sjoberg, Velli Pekka Ketola et al whose success with the WHA Winnipeg Jets opened the eyes of rival NHL general managers to the fact that Europe was an untapped source of great hockey talent?
The book mentions the fact that the Soviets regularly played exhibition games against NHL club teams, but again, nary a mention of the Soviets playing against WHA club teams. If anything, the WHA was much more accomodating to the idea of luring European talent to North America.
For this omission, this otherwise well researched book rates only a THREE.

Well, I can't agree with the only review here of this book and I'm not usually one to put my thoughts on review, but I gotta disagree here.

Ok, I'm a girl, so what do I know about hockey? Well, quite a lot, actually.

While it's true that this book is short, quick and quipped, I think it's packed with a wide assortment of interesting points of significance. I'm a self-taught historian who has a great love for the old PCHA. The stories about the Patrick's and how they formed the league went beyond what I've read in many past histories.

And then there's the Bernie Morris story! Come on! I have wondered for years about the status of Bernie Morris and why he seemed to just "disappear off the map." Well, this book solved that little mystery, and I'd never read any of it anywhere before.

I have always chuckled when I read about Link Gaetz, but I'd forgotten all about him. Well, Mr. Duplacey et al answered that little quiz for me as well. And if anyone didn't have a gawfaw when they read about King Clancy's room check, the special life of minor leaguers on the road and on the ice and all those weird trades and escapades and great lines from "Slapshot", well, where's your sense of humor?

OK, not everything's original and spick-span new, but all least all the great quotes we've heard and loved are gathered here in one place.

Hey, I'm a gal who loves hockey and I like to laugh about it too. And I laughed, big time. So do yourself a favor, buy it. So what if you can read it in an hour and a bit. Like, hockey fans have a wide attention span? This is an hour you'll enjoy. I know I did.

GoGirl

This book is full of hockey trivia and factoids. To me the most interesting parts were about the famous players, whom I already know. However, the book contains stories about players from the turn of the 20th century a lot of whom are probably known only to hockey encyclopedia buffs.

The author does have a pretty good sense of humor (e.g. Texas is an exotic place for ice hockey). However, sometimes the author's word choices may be awkward, repetitive and a little annoying.

If you are looking for a non-technical easy-to-read book about hockey legends this is a 3-star book for you, but don't expect much more from it.

'Hockey Stories for Short Attention Spans' is a better title for this book. The stories are only short anecdotes and many of them aren't even a page long. A reader could finish the entire book in under three hours. It's not very satisfying, either. It doesn't reveal much that fans haven't already heard about, nor does it discuss anything in depth. It offers little more than a small collection of cute factoids and famous quotes. There are also some mistakes. One of the most glaring is the description of the front cover photograph containing Leafs' Ponikarovsky and Senators' Magnus Arvedson. The description says the picture is of Mario Lemieux and Nevin Reid. I'd recommend this book to any fourth grade hockey lover with a book report due the next day. For rest of us, this bone offers hardly any marrow.

You will not enjoy this book unless you are a fan of Hockey! I read this book after about half a season of Hockey and seeing Crosby play. This book is a great way to learn about an up coming star (which you can see through his play). I would recommend this book to anyone that really loves the game of Hockey!

If you are a huge hockey fan, with knowledge about players and teams, new and old, throughout Canada and at all age levels, you are the right person for this book. Reading about places, people, and teams that I didn't know anything about was very frustrating and made it hard to keep reading. A good portion of the book was just comparing Gretzky and Crosby. That was interesting, in moderation. I was looking for a book to tell all about Sidney Crosby and his trip to the NHL. This book has that, but it came along with a lot of extra stuff that was unnecessary.

OK, any time a new star pops up there is an author wanting to make a quick buck. I knew better than to jump on the first unofficial biography but did anyways. Like any book of this genre, the entire thing comes off as "I talked to someone who talked to someone who once knew Sidney and based on that we can deduce this...". It was clear from the author's account that they stalked the Crosby family for a period of time and despite that effort failed to gain any deep insights from Sidney or his family. This entire book could have been written after reading newspaper clippings and perhaps a 30 minute interview with Sidney. My recommendation - wait until Sidney lives up to the hype (and I suspect he will!) and then read his official biography.

This book was published in 1987 but a goon is still a goon. The book is set up like a dictionary with chapter titles like "Tricks", "Dirty tricks" and "Ouch! Injuries". The Hockey Hockey reading and Source list is huge with many hockey books I never knew existed. Lots of information on older players, line nicknames, and French terms. Plus the price is right. One thing I wish it would have is the story behind the term "hat trick"

When i saw the cover i jumped to by this book, but after buying it I realized that i was a complete waste of time and money. There is just very little content and material that is useful to anyone with the slightest knowlege of hockey. It might be alright for the beginer, but beyond that level DON'T BUY IT!

This book has a photo of the Stanley Cup in a location on one side of each two-page spread with a short story or description on the other. I was very disappointed that few of stories were about adventures of the Cup; most seemed to be based more on the landmarks. A photo of the U.S. Capitol building is misidentified as the White House, which made me wonder how many others were wrong, also. A few of the photos (mostly photos of the "keepers of the cup") appear to have been taken with a quality digital camera, but the majority of the photos look like they were taken with a cheap film camera, developed at a mediocre lab and scanned using a cheap scanner. Cute book, but the content doesn't have much to recommend it.

I am a huge hockey fan... the book was only mildly entertaining. There was not too much new in it.

This is what happens when a radio reporter tries to write. Never have I read a more boring book in my life. Here's some typical portions from the book: "I got up. I ate breakfast and read the newspaper. There was a story about so-and-so. Then I went to the rink for practice. I talked to so-and-so about the game that night. Then I went back to the hotel. I was bored, so I went to a movie. When the movie was over, I went back to my room, grabbed my things and went to the rink." It goes on and on like that. Really, folks, give this subject to someone who can actually WRITE and tells you about all the drinking and #$%@?! that goes with hockey people when they travel AND THEN you will have a book! I covered the NHL for a long time. I know of what I speak.

How this book got written is BEYOND ME. It was boring. It was written by a radio guy. It gets into the monotonous details of NOTHING. You wanna go on the road with a hockey team? Who cares what the author saw at the movies between the morning skate and game time! What we want to know is what go-go bars they were in and why! We want people. We want dirt. Yeah, that's what happens on the road in pro sports...but he didn't have the guts to break the old credo of "What happens on the road stays on the road." Think of this as a black-lined secret government document for sports.

In the rough and tumble world of hockey what Berger produces is a fluff piece. I wanted to know what life was like on the road for an NHL team during a season but all i got from it was Berger's panoramic views from the window seat in the airplane. Who gives a crap what the city skyline was like? Instead of offering us a hard hitting account, he offers us with buddy buddy schmoozing with a couple hockey players and the coach. It was obvious that the players didn't want him around. Hardly ever did Berger give us accounts of him being with the players hangining out after the game or on days off. The closest thing to it was talking with Doug Gilmour on the street but he left in a hurry to go see his momma.(I thought he was supposed to detail the players and the team not his momma.) If i was going to request access to cover a team, i would lay down what i wanted to accomplish for the book and if i couldn't come to an agreement with the team, then i wouldn't produce a fluff piece just to let the world know i was around some hockey players. If Berger's goal was to remain buddies with the players and management, then what he should of done was chronicle another team not so close to his heart.

Perhaps the most incredibly inane hockey book ever written

My title says it all. There were so many spelling mistakes and/or typos (including the one above in the bio of Tie Domi) that I gave up half way through the book. If the author and/or the publisher couldn't bother to produce a quality book I couldn't be bothered finishing it.