Hockey Book Reviews.com

Bruce McNall is forever a hockey legend, even if he is as infamous as he is famous. McNall is of course the high roller who bought the Los Angeles Kings and then bought Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers, changing the game beyond anyone's wildest expectations. McNall also had other influences on the game - in such areas as business and marketing applications, expansion cash infusions and salary inflation - but it was the Gretzky trade that is McNall's long lasting legacy. He, of course, will also always be known for the collapse of his financial empire and his white collar crimes that landed him in prison. I recently picked up Fun While it Lasted , Bruce McNall's autobiography, co-written by Michael D'Antonio. I picked up only because of its connection to hockey. I was hoping the book would cover hockey more. Instead it touches mostly upon what is already publicly well known. Though most of us know of him strictly because of it, hockey is just a small part of McNall

A reader asked me recently to name the top 5 hockey books of all time. Here's my response, ranked in order of importance according only to me. Our Life With The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story by Roch Carrier. This book is neither a biography nor a memoir of Quebec's greatest hockey player. No, in fact it is in many ways a thoroughly researched and infectiously proud all grown up version of The Hockey Sweater. It's about what it was like to be French Canadian at a time when the Rocket was hockey's most dynamic player. Game Misconduct: Alan Eagleson and the Corruption of Hockey by Russ Conway. Investigative reporting by small-town sports editor Russ Conway brought down hockey's most powerful man, Alan Eagleson. The author's legwork uncovered how Eagleson, working as both an agent and as head of the players' union, cheated players out of a small fortune. The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier. Carrier's most famous story is about a young boy who orders a

It is only March, but I have found the 2008 hockey book of the year. It's too bad I just can't sit down and read it cover to cover. Author/university English professor Randall Maggs (brother of former NHL/WHA defenseman Daryl Maggs) and publisher Brick Books have combined to give us Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems . It is a book that will undoubtedly win countless of industry literary awards and should go down as one of the best hockey books of all time. "Poems," as I call it, is just that. Nearly 200 pages and over 70 individual pieces of poetry that combine to create one long, narrative piece of literary beauty. Yes, poetry. Hockey books don't tend to rank as literary gems because they're not intended to be. Almost without fail they follow the same formulaic approach, to appease the supposed lower end of the reading public spectrum. The stereotype of a hockey book reader is of the "dumb jocks" theory, more likely to read Slash's autobiography