Books Inspire Young Hockey Stars

Chris Zdeb of the Edmonton Journal has a real nice story about how books play a big role in the lives of Edmonton Oilers stars Kurtis Foster and Jordan Eberle, pictured above.

"Every year, my parents bought me the NHL yearbook that had all the stats and all the stories from the year, and that was how they got me to read," Foster said. "Because of that, I got a lot more into reading and it became something I enjoyed. My reading level also got better and better."

Foster also said his love of reading was cemented when he discovered Scott Young's Hockey Stories trilogy: A Boy at the Leafs' Camp, Boy on Defence and Scrubs on Skates, originally written in the 1950s.

For Eberle it was Roy MacGregor's Screech Owl series.

Both players tend to read biographies nowadays. Eberle is currently reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell and counts his favourite book as The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

Be sure to read the full Edmonton Journal article here. If you're kids are Oilers fans, show them this article, too. It is important to let reluctant readers - namely teenagers - that is cool to read.