Hockey Book Reviews.com

It's the end of a long work week. You decide to reward yourself by going to a fancy restaurant, thumb through the menu and find your favorite meal. You have unknowingly been salivating for this delicious dish for some time now. You know exactly what you want - the tastes, the smells, the surroundings. Your cravings and expectations are growing as you wait. A number of bites into that long awaited meal you realize what you have is very, very good, but not really what you were expecting. It is great, but not quite what you really wanted. This is kind of how I felt after picking up Seamus O'Coughlin's book Squaw Valley Gold: American Hockey's Olympic Odyssey . Buy The Book: Amazon.com - Chapters - Amazon.ca It is wonderful book, featuring exhaustive research. I learned an amazing amount of American and Olympic hockey history by reading it, and have referred back to it as a trustworthy text I keep near my work station. But it just wasn't what I was expecting. I was ex...

Hockey books tend to be correctly stereotyped as formulaic pieces of non-fiction. There is a dearth of creative, fun, hockey literature. Here to help fill that void is new author Frank Ewert. He's compiled a collection of entertaining short stories in his first book Blue Ice: And Other Stories from the Rink . The book is pretty thin. It is just 82 small pages, with just six simple stories. But also contained in this small volume is promise. Promise of a good young writer who I am confident we will hear from again. I suspect he will likely branch out from hockey, though he has found some high praise already from the hockey world. "Frank Ewert not only has a fine feel for the game and it's wacky characters, he has a nice, laid-back storytelling style with a sense of humour," Roy MacGregor is quoted saying on the back of the book. MacGregor of course is one of hockey's most prolific writers, finding great success in the juvenile fiction genre with The Screech Owls se...

I found this gem over at Habs Inside/Out: Dalhousie University associate English professor David McNeil has learned about more than his late father, Gerry McNeil, in writing an as-yet unpublished biography of the Stanley Cup-winning goaltender. Here's some more information on the manuscript , and here is the author's detailed planning notes including photos. Hopefully David McNeil can find a publisher soon, because this promises to be an interesting read.

In North America we define each other by what we do. Therefore Bryan Patterson is by all standards quite the success. After all, he is a practicing nuclear power engineer and a published author. But that is not who Bryan Patterson really is. Ask his family and friends. Bryan Patterson is a hockey player. A professional pick up hockey player, to be exact. Patterson has played hockey all his life. He shows no signs of slowing down as he gets older, still playing three times a week. He freely admits to not being all that good at it, at least in comparison to the pros. But his passion for the game is not surpassed by any NHLer. He loves this game. There are 1000s of people like him across the world. Whether they are nuclear engineers or grocery store bag boys, they see themselves as hockey stars. They can not wait for their next trip to the local rink for their next pick up game. They do not play in a league or on set teams. They show up at the rink, draw sticks and drop the puck. It is fo...

I was contacted by Timothy Gassen recently. You remember him. He wrote Red, White & Blues: A Personal History of the Indianapolis Racers 1974-1979 back in 2007. Yes, the same Indianapolis Racers that Wayne Gretzky began his professional career with. Gassen's back in 2009, this time with the limited edition 2 DVD set Gretzky, Indy and the WHA . The world premiere public screening is going to be at the Hockey Hall of Fame on May 16th, 2009. The DVD is already available for sale. Gassen sent me a copy to review, and I will soon. I have taken a sneak peek and I have to say it is of the highest professional quality. Disc one has a 50 minute documentary on the history of the Racers, including the involvement of the very young Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. Highlights, fight videos, interviews and audio files of WHA radio broadcasts. You can also use the disc to print off Gassen's revised 155 page book. Disc two features two games. The first is from December 1978. It is the Rac...