Greatest Hockey Legends: The E-Book

As the hockey season gets closer, I will be releasing my first e-book. This will be my third book, as I previously released World Cup of Hockey: A History of Hockey's Greatest Tournament (with the incomparable Patrick Houda) and The Legends of Team Canada to store bookshelves via Warwick Publishing..

Other than to say it will be a collection of stories with as much of a personal touch as possible, I will be releasing more information about my e-book as the season nears. I have not settled on a title just yet, but project is something along the lines of James Duthie meets Jack Falla.

Since this is my first e-book, I wanted to play with the software to familiarize myself with the process. As such, I have released a small e-book Greatest Hockey Legends of the Winnipeg Jets simply for practice purposes.

It is a small project, and really is nothing like my main e-book I will be releasing later. I will leave the Jets e-book available for now, at the bargain basement price of $0.99. I would consider any purchase of the book as essentially a donation, but also an opportunity for feedback. Let me know what you think, what you like and what you don't like. Do you have any experience or advice with e-books, either as a user or a consumer?

To view the e-book you will need a Kindle or the Kindle App for your iPad/iPhone/iPod or whichever device you do use. I look forward to getting some feedback.

Celebrating the 2010-11 Season of the Vancouver Canucks

As they do every year, the National Hockey League and Fenn/M&S had prepared all spring for a quick-to-market book about the 2011 Stanley Cup champions. A couple of weeks after the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup, they released The Year of the Bruins.

Of course, the editors had to be equally prepared for the eventuality that the Vancouver Canucks had won the Cup. Using the same template and format, they prepared just such a book. They even made the mistake of releasing the cover and listing it online. Take a look.

That book never made it to market, needless to say. But after having the book prepared minus the storybook ending, the NHL and publishers decided to cash in on the Canadian marketplace and release the book as Celebrating the 2010-2011 Season of the Vancouver Canucks.

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

That's nice of the, although I'm sure every Vancouver Canucks fan would tell you they would much rather have seen the book that was never released.

Essentially the book that was ultimately released was an obvious cash grab. Other than self-imposed time constraints, it was unnecessary to release the book so quickly. They should have taken the time to at least change up the look and format so that it was not so obviously the book Canucks fans almost had. Take the time to change it up a bit and offer Canucks fans something a bit different.

It's bad enough that Canucks fans never got the book they really wanted in the first place. This rushed book only reminds them of that.

Summer Reading: King of Russia

My latest summer 2011 campfire read is McClelland and Stewart's 2007 release King of Russia: a Year in the Russian Super League. It chronicles Canadian hockey coaching legend Dave King's journey to the Ural Mountains to become the first Canadian coach in Russia. The book is based on King's daily diary, typically meticulous and refreshingly open, and polished up beautifully by The Globe and Mail's ace hockey reporter Eric Duhatschek.

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

I personally consider Duhatschek to be the best hockey journalist out there for quite some time. Not only is he incredibly connected, thorough and respected, but he's got an easy to read and captivating writing style. So I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised how easily I was drawn into the text.

But I was very pleasantly surprised just how compelling and fascinating the text is. One biography or well written autobiography that I've always wanted to read is that of Coach King. He is a three time Olympic coach, and formerly the one man Canadian national team king-pin. He's also coached two NHL teams and teams all over the world. As one of the greatest - although also greatly underrated - bench tacticians ever, his story potentially has so much to offer a reader - about the Soviets, about the NHL, about Canadian hockey and about European hockey, and so much more.

King of Russia isn't that book. Instead is a look into a single season of King's career. I cracked the spine already disappointed because I knew it wasn't what I was looking for.

A few paragraphs later, I realized I had found quite possibly the leading candidate for best read of the new hockey book season.

Back when King was coaching in Calgary, the NHL had a great influx of eastern Europeans. One of them was Soviet great Sergei Makarov. We North Americans were never truly understanding of the hardships these guys faced. A whole new country, a whole new way of hockey, a whole new language, a whole new life. They understandably struggled, and we were quick to dismiss them as inferior, and never truly understood the incredible transition they had to go through.

Well now we can, but in reverse. It is the Canadian, King, pioneering his way into Russia. He had to deal with the strange new homeland, a language barrier, a cultural 180 degree turn and a stubborn and peculiar hockey system. Oh, and there's such 21st century hazards such as the Russian mafia. Finally Coach King understands Makarov's struggles all too well.

Through it all, King tries to finds the silver linings, but in his daily diary he is very open about wondering if he has made a big mistake. At times we get to see the rare vulnerable side of a hockey legend.

But we also get to see so much more. By the end of the book, I'm converted in to a Metallurg Magnitogorsk fan and am looking online to buy a jersey. I feel for many of the players, much like King. King looks to former NHLer Dimitri Yuskevich defenseman to be an early pillar, and an English ally. Swedish defenseman Anders Eriksson and Canadian goalie Travis Scott are also relied on heavily. Ilja Vorobiev becomes a favorite of Coach King and of any Canadian reader. Others on the team include gormer NHLer Igor Korolev, the wildly enigmatic Stanislav Chistov and teenage phenom Evgeni Malkin, who leads the team and the league, but will soon leave the league to join the National Hockey League.

Malkin's departure allows to better appreciate how the Russians feel about the NHL continually uprooting the country's top young players. It's a real eye opener for us Westerners, and maybe the Russians have a point when it comes to their continuing dispute about player compensation with the NHL-IIHF player transfer agreement.

King learns first hand why the Russians are able to develop incredible individual talents but poor international teams. Its a far cry from their glory days, that's for sure.

Through it all, King is continually open and perplexed, and as usual successful. Its an amazing look into just one year of an amazing life. I still want a great biography or autobiography of Dave King, but I now realize it would take volumes to cover his hockey insight.