Long Shot: How the Winnipeg Falcons Won the First Olympic Hockey Gold by Eric Zweig

The improbable story of Frank Fredrickson and his childhood friends probably could not be made up by the best of fiction writers.

And that's the best part - the story of the Winnipeg Falcons is completely true. And it is all captured in Long Shot: How the Winnipeg Falcons won the first Olympic hockey goldby Eric Zweig.

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The sons of Icelandic immigrants and friends since boyhood, the Winnipeg Falcons were a superbly talented hockey team of just eight players who brought home Canada's first Olympic gold medal in hockey in 1920. But before they became world champions, the Falcons endured years of prejudice on and off the ice, and several close calls during combat service in World War I. And don't forget life-long infatuations with violins and aviation!

This is the real life story of an underdog hockey team that would not quit and became world champions. It is written by author and renowned hockey historian Eric Zweig.

The book is the quickest of reads, at just 112 tiny pages. It should be noted that Long Shot is classified as juvenile non-fiction. It is a great introduction to the fantastic story, even if you're an adult. But if you're looking for a deeper connection with the characters and events, you will have to look elsewhere.

But make no mistake, this book is thorough. The author even writes "It took me 15 days to write this book . . . but 15 years to do the research."

The tiny book does include 9 black and white photographs, all of which are very interesting. I especially enjoy the photo of the 1920 Swiss Olympic team, with the goaltender wearing the shirt and tie!

The Best of Jim Coleman

Not evening aware of its existence, I recently accidentally stumbled up on the book The Best of Jim Coleman : Fifty Years of Canadian Sport from the Man Who Saw It All. I have to say I was wowed with the wide variety of not only hockey history, but sporting history witnessed and articulated by arguably Canada's most influential sports writer.

The book is a collection of Coleman's best articles and columns from a career spanning over 50 years. The collection was put together by another of Canada's greatest sports writers, Jim Taylor.

Here's how Ian MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun describes the Coleman compendium:

From Coleman's 2,500 columns, Taylor has selected stories about King Clancy, and Robinson before baseball's integration, about war ending and fish tales and bear tales and discovering, in 1943, that 1908 heavyweight champion Jack Johnson was on display in a freak show. Coleman's columns are a Canterbury Tales of sports as he introduces readers to colourful, odd characters, themselves often the storytellers in his columns.

Amazon.ca says: Jim Coleman saw the Victoria Cougars win the Stanley Cup in 1925 and the Team Canada-Russia hockey showdown in 1972. He saw Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth slam homers in training camp and was there when Jack Dempsey KO'd Jack Sharkey. He interviewed a young man named Jackie Robinson who wistfully dreamed of the day when black men might play in baseball's major leagues. From 1939 until his death at 89, Coleman covered every sport imaginable with eloquence, wit and an unfailing love that earned him a position as Canada's first nationally syndicated sports columnist, membership in five Canadian Sports Halls of Fame, the Order of Canada and status as the country's most beloved sportswriter.

I'm a tunnel-visioned hockey fan. I honestly don't follow any other sports beyond a passive interest at best. So I skipped through much of the book looking for the hockey stories. There certainly are a number of gems to be found.

He talks about Foster Hewitt in a 1939 column, recalls the "mighty" Sprague Cleghorn and Si Griffis in 1943 and Lester Patrick in 1949, and tells a hilarious story of a practical joke played on NHL president Red Dutton where a goose was placed in his hotel bathtub.

It is interesting to see how writing styles have changed. Back in the old days hockey writers had a lot more freedom to be wordsmiths as opposed to just journalists. Check out this piece of writing from 1940 on the incomparable King Clancy:

"If you are a constant reader of the daily blats you will have observed that Frank "King" Clancy, the shillelagh-swinging Celt from Ottawa, is still slugging sundry citizens across the chops. King Clancy is acting in this bellicose fashion despite the fact that he has retired from active participation in the sanguinary sport of puck-chasing and has donned the uniform and attendant dignity of a National Hockey League referee."

Or how he describes New York Rangers defenseman Ching Johnson in 1946:

Out of the west one day roared that irrepressible fellow, Ivan "Ching" Johnson. Ivan, you will recall, was the large chappie who belted the bejabbers out of incoming forwards but always wore a wide and most pleasant-looking grin when performing those robust chores. Actually, his grin was a peculiar facial grimace and Ivan wasn't entirely the gentle soul that he appeared to be. Those who played alongside him will tell you that his lips curved back that way simply because he was grinding his teeth fearsomely and uttering threats to the enemy.

I also really enjoy a 1958 column comparing Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe:

"There are purists who will tell you that Gordie Howe is the peer of Richard as a hockey player. All of which probably is true and all of which, as far as I am concerned, is for the birds. Give me Maurice Richard and I'll fill every hockey rink in North America. Give me an entire team of Gordie Howes and I'll have the greatest hockey team in history - but how would they do at the box office?

For a parallel with the case of Richard and Howe, it is necessary to take a look at baseball when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were teammates on the New York Yankees. Manager Miller Huggins always said that, on a day-to-day basis, Gehrig was the better ballplayer. But it was the mighty Ruth who drew the spectators into the ballparks. Ruth was the Maurice Richard of baseball."

Then there was his coverage of the 1972 Summit Series. For an idea of what he had to say back then, here's the four headlines from the articles in the book: Whose National Game?; A Few Words From Captain Phil; One For All The Marbles; and Never A Doubt.

All in all, The Best of Jim Coleman is a fascinating book that sports fans from all genres and all generations can enjoy.

Overall Book Rating: 5/5 Hall of Famer

Searching For Bobby Orr

I was surprised to see Stephen Brunt's latest book Searching for Bobby Orr out on paperback already. It is also available in hardcover, and later in 2007 it will be available in mass-market paperback.

Brunt's biography was the class of the 2006-07 hockey book season, bar none. I am a notoriously slow reader, but I devoured this book in only a couple of days. It is a super-easy read but retains the high literary quality that escapes so many hockey biographical books. A super job by Mr. Brunt, one of Canada's top hockey journalists, and beautifully designed by the folks at Knopf Canada and Random House.

Searching for Bobby Orr is the perfect title. Everyone knows of Bobby Orr, but so few actually know him. This book allows readers from every generation to find out for themselves who Bobby Orr, hockey player and, to a lesser degree, person, was.

Brunt represents a generation that grew up idolizing Orr. I've seen reviews from that generation which suggest the book offers nothing new, although as a well read hockey historian I can attest that while that might be true to some degree, no book packages it all together so nicely.

And even more importantly, the book reads excellently for the following generation, which includes myself, that grew up having never seen Orr play, but knowing he was the greatest defenseman, if not player, in the history of hockey. While Brunt might not quite crack all of the mysteries of Bobby Orr, perhaps that is actually for the best.

Orr is an intensely private man, almost to a fault. He is so private that he refused to contribute to Brunt's book in any way, and, according to Brunt, let it be known to his family and closest friends not to participate in such endeavors. Brunt is completely open about this and does the best he can, the best anyone has ever accomplished on Orr. He relies on secondary sources, the likes of Bucko McDonald, the former NHL defenseman who coached Bobby as a junior; Wren Blair, the Boston scout that worked so hard to secure Orr's services; and Cora Wild, who together with husband Jack, billeted young Bobby when he left home to play for the Oshawa Generals en route to his big league hockey dreams.

If it wasn't for Orr's legion of fans, led by none other than Don Cherry's continual championing of Orr as hockey's greatest player ever (and, by the way, Cherry very well may be right on this topic, as he often is), Orr may have been happy to live the rest of his life in peace and quiet, avoiding the spotlight altogether. That would be a shame, as somehow keeping quiet off the ice somehow erodes the legacy of greatness on the ice. Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Phil Esposito embraced the spotlight, and Rocket Richard could not possibly escape it and learned to live with it. As a result their legacies will live on forever.

Without a great collection of video evidence or literary excellence on his career, following generations have had a tough time truly understanding just how great Bobby Orr was. Thanks to Stephen Brunt's book Searching for Bobby Orr, Bobby Orr's legacy will live on forever, too.

Overall Book Rating: 4/5 All Star

P.S. For serious Bobby Orr fans, and for the curious just wanting to witness the on-ice greatness, be sure to check out the incredible DVD The Best of Bobby Orr.