Summer Reading: The Golden Jet

Another campfire read for me this summer was one of my favorite books from 2010: the unique The Golden Jet: A Spectacular Career in Stunning Photographs:

You already know Bobby Hull had a spectacular career. Let me assure you the photographs in this books truly are stunning.

Consider this book is a coffee table autobiography. Countless photographs accompanied with Bobby's own captions brilliantly bring back to life the amazing career of one of hockey's true greats. The photos steal the show, but Bobby's commentary are the true jewels of this treasure chest.

The book is also accompanied with a tribute DVD featuring exclusive interviews, archival footage and behind the scenes clips.

This book is listed at $29.95 US/$34.95 CDN. (Apparently no one has told Triumph Books that the Canadian dollar is at/over par for a few years now.) For a book of this size loaded with so many rare and exclusive photos, that is a really reasonable price. And of course, many bookstores and online sources are selling it 30% less than the jacket price.

I wish other hockey greats would consider such a project as this. I hope Triumph Books is looking to create a NHL series of books along these lines, as I am a big fan of their approach.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

By The Way: Of course, more recent fans know Bobby Hull strictly as Brett Hull's dad. This is a great chance to learn more about one of hockey's true legends. Oh, and Brett makes more than a few appearances in the book - from a tot to a pee-wee to a NHL star in his own right.

Summer Reading: The Greatest Game

Every summer I escape hockey and the computer by going camping and hiking. The escape from hockey is never far for me. I always carry a few hockey books for evenings of sitting around the camp fire. It is a great way to forget about the daily aches and blisters acquired while chasing waterfalls and mountain tops.

On my most recent outing I found myself staying up far later than I should have. I needed the rest for a full next day of outdoor activity, but I was far too immersed in Todd Denault's The Greatest Game.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com - E-Book

The book is about the famous New Year's Eve clash between the Montreal Canadiens and the Soviet Red Army team back in 1975. My favorite parts of the book are the historical build up to the game. Denault explores the rise of the likes of Anatoli Tarasov, Sam Pollock, Ken Dryden and Vladislav Tretiak. It is a must read text for any fan of the Habs or the Soviets.

Denault is as thorough a hockey researcher as you will find, yet he presents his findings with the gift of a storyteller. It is a magnificent book. Here is my original book review.

The book is being released in paperback
in the fall of 2011. As soon as I found out about additional material I will pass it along.

Boston Bruins 2011 Stanley Cup Championship DVD

Now available is the NHL Stanley Cup Champions 2011: Boston Bruins. Needless to say, this is a must have for all Boston Bruins fans.

Buy The DVD:
Amazon.ca - DVD - Blu-ray
Chapters - DVD - Blu-ray
Amazon.com - DVD - Blu-ray

Here's more from the studio:

Own the most watched NHL event of the year. Complete with highlights from the regular season, playoffs and the final series. Watch as your team fights for, and eventually hoist the Cup! The 2011 release will contain full coverage of the winning season, including exclusive interviews, key insights and behind the scenes action. After a regular season filled with injuries, fatigue, and playoff positioning and a post-season chock-full of drama, there can only be one team left standing! You can see the heroism on full display during the NHL playoffs and celebrate the champion's season. The DVD features highlights, exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes action.

This Sweater Is For You

One of the most beloved stories of all time—The Hockey Sweater—is celebrated in this heartfelt recollection. Reflecting on the original short story and mortifying real-life moment that started it all, This Sweater Is for You! relates how the resulting film is as much about childhood emotions and the desire to fit in as it is about hockey, the clash of cultures, and a harkening to bygone times. Canada’s tireless devotion to the film is illustrated, emphasizing how it is also loved by many more around the world. Delving into the artist’s notebooks, photographs, and memories, this record recreates the movie’s entire development, journeying back to the people and places that inspired its original imagery. The director’s additional films and illustrations are also explored, chronicling a 40-year career and providing rich insights into the creative process.

Sheldon Cohen is an award-winning animator and film director, an illustrator, and a painter. His films include I Want a Dog, Pies, The Snow Cat, The Sweater, and The Three Wishes. He is the author of The Basketball Player, The Boxing Champion, The Flying Canoe, and The Longest Home Run. He has lectured at Harvard University and Concordia University. He lives in Montreal, Quebec. Roch Carrier was Canada’s National Librarian and the author of several Canadian classics for both adults and children. He has been awarded the Stephen Leacock Award for Humor, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Officer of the Order of Canada, and several honorary doctorates. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

Hockey Superstars: All Time Greats by Paul Romanuk

Paul Romanuk has expanded his 25 year Hockey Superstars franchise from the annual offering to two volumes of All Time Greats.

Check out Hockey Superstars: All-Time Greats! Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Book one features Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Guy Lafleur, Ken Dryden, and Bobby Orr while book two includes Mark Messier, Steve Yzerman, Henri Richard, Bobby Clarke and Brett Hull.

Forty NHL legends are featured in total.

Hockey Superstars 2011-2012 by Paul Romanuk

What would a hockey book season be without Paul Romanuk's Hockey Superstars 2011-2012.

For 25 years no Romanuk has been churning out the popular Superstars series for Scholastic. Full of colour photography and interesting stories and always priced very reasonably, this is a great book for the young hockey fan on your Christmas shopping list.

NHL superstars are profiled with glossy full-page, full-colour photos, bios, stats, and interview quotes. Included in this book are Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, Henrik Zetterberg, Steve Stamkos, Nicklas Lidstrom, Michael Cammalleri, and more.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com - French Version

Tales From The New Jersey Devils' Locker Room by Chico Resch and Mike Kerwick

Calling all New Jersey Devils fans. Chico Resch, with the help of Mike Kerwick, is re-releasing a rare book about everyone's favorite team from the Meadowlands: Tales from the New Jersey Devils Locker Room: A Collection of the Greatest Devils Stories Ever Told

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

In Tales from the New Jersey Devils Locker Room, former New Jersey goalie Chico Resch and coauthor Mike Kerwick bring readers along for a wild ride from the lean early seasons to the three Stanley Cup championships of this beloved team.

This is an updated and expanded release of Resch's and Kerwicks' Chico Resch's Tales from the Devils Ice. The 2011 release runs over 200 pages and includes 25 black and white photos.

Rayzor's Edge: Rob Ray's Tough Life On The Ice

Here's a must read for all Buffalo Sabres fans. Popular tough guy Rob Ray is releasing an autobiography called - Rayzor's Edge: Rob Ray's Tough Life on the Ice.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

Rob Ray was known as one of the NHL’s toughest players of the 1990s. During his thirteen seasons with the Buffalo Sabres he twice lead the league in time spent in the penalty box. Ray was known for his jersey-off fighting style, which eventually led to the “Rob Ray Rule” banning that practice. In Rayzor’s Edge, Ray shares many humorous and insightful stories from his Sabres career.

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Sports Publishing; Second Edition edition (Oct 4 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613210256
ISBN-13: 978-1613210253

My First NHL Goal by Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey journalist Mike Brophy returns to bookstore shelves this winter with My First NHL Goal: 50 players and the goal that marked the beginning of their NHL career.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

Every player who ever scored in the NHL has a different story about his first goal. For some, like Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, or Phil Esposito, their first goal was just one of many they would score in their long and illustrious careers. For others, their first goal was also their last.

Sports journalist Mike Brophy has interviewed fifty players about their first NHL goal, and the result is a wide-ranging wealth of personal stories that include high-profile former NHLers and many of the game’s best players from today. Some players, such as Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, scored in their first NHL game. Others were not so lucky. Jim Vesey, for example, scored his only NHL goal into an empty net. With lots of direct quotes from the players themselves and Brophy supplying the tantalizing background information and career highlights, this book is a nice biographical collection of hockey stories that can enjoyed by everyone.

Mike Brophy is a hockey analyst for Rogers Sportsnet, a syndicated columnist and twice-weekly analyst for The Team 990 in Montreal. Brophy covered junior hockey for the Peterborough Examiner for 14 years and served as a senior writer with The Hockey News for 17 years.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader: Shoots and Scores

Expanded and updated with 70 all new pages, Portable Press presents Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores: Updated and Expanded Edition.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com

The original paperback came out way back in 2005. Here's more from the publisher:

Product Description - Now updated and expanded with 70 new pages, this collection of slap shots, penalty kills, and toothless grins offers fans everything they love about hockey: its colorful history, legendary players, and enough hard-hitting trivia to satisfy even the most avid stat head. The latest title in Uncle John's series dedicated to the wide (and weird!) world of sports, Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores: Updated & Expanded Edition shares the origins of the "Coolest Game on Earth," the greatest teams in hockey history, the best (and worst) hockey movies of all time, the Incredible Exploding Zamboni, a rap sheet of hockey arrests, goalies' superstitions (Patrick Roy's conversations with goal posts, Glenn Hall's pre-game upchucking), and much, much more.

About the Author - The Bathroom Readers' Institute is a tight-knit group of loyal and skilled writers, researchers, and editors who have been working as a team for years. The BRI understands the habits of a very special market--Throne Sitters--and devotes itself to providing amazing facts and conversation pieces.

Uncle John's books are incredibly popular. Amazon has over 550 Uncle John's books listed.

Sid vs. Ovi by Andrew Podnieks

Yet another Andrew Podnieks offering in 2011 is Sid vs. Ovi: Crosby and Ovechkin - Natural Born Rivals. The book is published by Fenn/McClelland and Stewart.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com - Kindle eBook

Here's more from the publishers:

Even before Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin began their NHL careers in 2005, the two players were rivals. They first met at the World U20 (Junior) Championship, playing for the gold medal, and ever since they have been opponents in the NHL and international arenas. No two star players could be so different. Crosby is the consummate captain and team player, the responsible face of the NHL. Ovechkin is the loose cannon on ice and off, capable of a great play or a cocky comment.

Sid vs. Ovi traces this intense rivalry game by game, year by year, from 2005 to 2011 and beyond. Their biographies are given consideration alongside their in-game performance and career development to present a clear picture of their lives, their careers, their league, and their countries. Hockey fans can well be divided into those who prefer one or the other of this pair of scintillating talents. But one thing is certain – the presence of one inspires the other to greater heights.

Here's the specs:

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: McClelland and Stewart (Oct 25 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0771071167
• ISBN-13: 978-0771071164

Over The Line by Al Strachan

When major publishers Fenn and McClelland and Stewart merged, that was great news for hockey fans. They appear committed to becoming hockey's foremost publisher.

One of their projects for 2011 enlists hockey writing heavyweight Al Strachan in Over the Line: Wrist Shots, Slap Shots, and Five-Minute Majors. Roy MacGregor writes the foreword.

Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com - Kindle Edition

The book is a 288 page trade paperback. Here's more from the publishers:

Bestselling author and Toronto Sun sportswriter Al Strachan is a permanent fixture in the illustrious world of professional ice hockey. His opinion, backed by an extensive knowledge of the game and his sharp sense of humour, is read and enjoyed by millions of fans internationally. He has established unique and personal relationships with the biggest names in hockey from every generation and era and it is through these contacts that Strachan can step Over the Line to obtain exclusive access to information.

Strachan has been writing about hockey for over forty years. He has experienced first-hand all that the game has to offer. From Stanley Cup victories, miraculous saves, and incredible goals to devastating hits and world class bouts, Strachan has been there to report on the most exciting, controversial, devastating, frustrating, humorous and talked-about episodes in the history of the game, whether it's Stanley Cup victories, miraculous saves, and incredible goals or devastating hits and world class bouts. In his latest adventure, he relives tales from the rink that will fascinate, amuse, shock, and entertain all fans of the game -- from dressing-room banter between player and coach to insider information on the League's revenue sharing program. It's all here, glorious page after glorious page of stuff that any fan of hockey must read.