Hockey Book Reviews.com

One of the more important hockey books of 2011 has to be Adam Proteau's anti-violence campaign in Fighting The Good Fight: Why On Ice Violence Is Killing The Good Fight . I recently had the chance to sit down and interview Proteau and talk about some very pertinent topics. Buy The Book:  Amazon.ca   -  Chapters  -  Amazon.com 1. Do hockey fights really sell tickets? Or do pro leagues condone aggressive physical play to allow weaker teams and players a chance to compete against truly superior stars, therefore staying in games and playoff races thus giving fans hope and reasons to buy tickets? I think it's the latter. And the mushrooming of the enforcer role in particular around the time of NHL expansion says it all for me. Time and again, the league has shown itself to be a copycat entity, where teams look at what succeed – or at least, what is allowed to count as success – and attempt to copy it: think of the defense-first Dead Puck Era, for example. And a...

It seems hockey and violence have always gone hand in hand. Take, for example, the very first recorded hockey game in history. On March 3rd, 1875, James Creighton and his hockey pals played the very first indoor hockey game at Montreal's McGill University. The game is universally important as it featured the first ever set of written rules, standardizing the game. The always evolving game of hockey as we know it today was "born." The very next day people complained about the violence in the exhibition game. A Kingston, Ontario newspaper reporter for the British Whig Standard alleged "a disgraceful sight took place at Montreal in the Victoria Rink over a game of hockey. Shins and heads were battered, benches smashed, and the lady spectators fled in confusion." (Perhaps this was some sort of a sensational smear campaign, as the Montreal Gazette never said anything about a brawl.) Ever since fighting and violence have long played a role in hockey history. Hec...

The Hockey News' second hockey book of 2009 is Puck Funnies: Hockey Humour, Hilarity and Hi-Jinx . Buy The Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com The Good - Think of it as GHL's Sunday Funnies hits the hockey book shelves. This text is full of funny hockey stories throughout hockey history. Everyone loves a funny story and everyone loves hockey. And I want everyone to love hockey history every bit as much as I do. How can I not recommend this book? The stories are told by some of the best writers in the business, plus some comedians including Denis Leary and Colin Mochrie. The Bad - Presentation counts, and the cover fails. Hockey is full of humorous stories and many are listed in these 225 pages. But the Frosted Pucks cereal box look with a monkey on the cover is more sad than funny. Presentation also fails on the inside. I understand the cost concerns, but why this book is not fitted with the same glossy pages and color photography that THN's other 2009 title, The Pur...

A decade ago The Hockey News celebrated their 50th anniversary by forming a panel to name the top 50 players in National Hockey League history . The result: a whole lot of conversational debate, a classic special issue magazine-turned-expanded book, and, I'm guessing here a bit, magazine/book sales out the ying-yang. Fast forward to 2007 and THN needs to celebrate their 60th anniversary. How do they do it? By forming another panel to name the top 60 players, of course. But in order to make it different they only look at players after the NHL's first expansion in 1967, skip the special issue magazine and immediately release the book Hockey News Top 60 Since 1967: the Best Players of the Post-Expansion Era . Last step: cue the debate. Now of course you're immediately saying, "Okay Joe, tell us who the 60 are." Well, I won't quite do that. You gotta go down to the bookstore and check it out yourself. But I will tell you what I learned firsthand this past summer w...