Jacques Plante: The Man Who Changed The Face Of Hockey by Todd Denault

Folks, I've finally found a true contender for the 2009 Hockey Book of the Year award.

Jacques Plante: The Man Who Changed the Face of Hockey by Todd Denault is worthy of mention in the sentence as Theo Fleury's autobiography Playing With Fire. Stephen Brunt's Gretzky's Tears and Bob McKenzie's Hockey Dad will also get consideration.

Read An Jacques Plante Exclusive Excerpt
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Todd Denault has penned an amazing biography of Jacques Plante, the man I have long considered to be the greatest goalie in hockey history. Moreover, I would easily rank him as the most important and influential goalie, perhaps player of any kind, in the game's long history.

Plante is obviously one of the greatest goalies of all time. The seven time all star won six Stanley Cups, seven Vezina trophies as top goalie and one Hart trophy, a true rarity for a goalie, as league MVP. He still ranks as the 6th winningest goalie in NHL history.

More importantly he was also incredibly influential. Of course you know he popularized the use of the mask. Did you know he also greatly influenced it's evolution. He was also the first goalie to wander the ice to play the puck. He developed communication symbols with his defensemen. Many of the duties goalies do nowadays that we take for granted were started by Plante. Simply put, he is one of the most innovating figures in the history of hockey.

But he was also a great misunderstood character. He was mysterious and complex, and often kept to himself. He was outspoken and defiant, often clashing with a dismissive and narrow-minded hockey establishment.

Denault does an amazing job with this biography, redefining the term exhaustive research in the process. With Plante dead for over 20 years of stomach cancer, Denault was forced to thoroughly investigate newspaper and other printed archives to piece together this jigsaw puzzle. Denault was every bit as meticulous with his craft as Plante was with his.

The result is an amazing biography, although it has a bit of an academic text book feel to it. Denault offers us his years of research, but does not quite take the next step and draws the reader in emotionally from cover to cover, a la Jack Falla.

That's alright, because in between the many facts there are some great stories in here, thanks to interviews with the likes of Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard, Dickie Moore and Scotty Bowman.

My favorite story comes in the book's prologue. Plante insisted that for quite some time the nets in three of NHL's six cities were 2 inches lower than the other three. When the NHL measured the nets, they were shocked to find out the nets in New York, Boston and Chicago were all smaller!

Then there was the many examples of Plante's eccentricities, from his frugalness to his passion for knitting.

As a goaltending coach later in life, how he predicted Patrick Roy would never make it to the NHL. Ironically it was Roy who would take goaltending to the next level of evolution. Plante, who had to fight the establishment to make his progressions, was now the dismissive establishment.

And then there was early death at the age of 57. He was living in Switzerland by that time, and had just been diagnosed with an untreatable and aggressive form of stomach cancer. When his coffin was carried from the church following the funeral mass, it passed under an arch of hockey sticks held high by a team of young hockey players from Quebec, visiting Switzerland for a tournament.

After just a few pages into this book it was obvious Todd Denault had written an instant classic. I can not recommend this book enough. Plante was one of the game's true great players. He is sadly unknown to many of today's generations of fans. He is truly worthy of such a fine commemoration.

Dino Hockey by Lisa Wheeler with Barry Gott

I was snooping around the book section in a local pharmacy this morning and I discovered a kid's hockey book I guarantee the young hockey fan on your Christmas list will enjoy.

What do all kids love? Dinosaurs! So what will your little puckster enjoy reading? Dino-Hockey!

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

Written by veteran children's book author Lisa Wheeler and beautifully illustrated by Barry Gott, this book, aimed at ages 4 to 9, is a fun read that can be enjoyed by both kids and parents. The rhyming text had me chuckling, aided nicely colorful paintings of exaggerated expressions of dinosaurs trying to play hockey.

The premise of the book is of a a hockey game played between opposing dinosaur teams: the Meat-Eaters and the Veggiesaurs. The scowling T. Rex redefines intimidation on ice, while the slap stick humor of the pterodactyl twins keep things light. My favorite characters are the overlooked Dodo bird referee, and the concession stand operator selling various forms of prehistoric delicacies to the crowd - meat and plants, of course.

The book was originally published in 2007, and re-released in paperback in September. The paperback release coincides with the release of a new Dino title by Wheeler and Gott, Dino-Soccer. Since the soccer title is hinted at quite promisingly in the back of the hockey title, both books would go good together. By the way, Dino Baseball is tentatively scheduled for release April 2010.

Bottom line - I'm a huge proponent of getting kids into books early, and this fun and funny Dino series by Wheeler and Gott easily attracts kids. Kids will enjoy the books on their own, but it is also a great way to spend some time with mom, dad or an older sibling.

Big Train by Richard Brignall

This is Lionel Conacher. The man they called "The Big Train" is truly a Canadian sporting legend. Lionel Conacher is arguably "Canada's Greatest Athlete" and is often referred to as "Canada's Jim Thorpe."

He is also the subject of Richard Brignall's new book Big Train: The Legendary Ironman of Sport, Lionel Conacher.

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He was a charter inductee in the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame (1951), and has been inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1963), the Hockey Hall of Fame (1994), and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

In football, Conacher played for the Toronto Argonauts (1921-22) and won the Grey Cup in 1921. The previous year, he had won hockey's Memorial Cup as a member of the Toronto Canoe Club Paddlers. Conacher went on to a 12-year career in the NHL (1925-37), mostly with the Montreal Maroons, where he was a second-team all-star defenseman in 1932-33, and played on the Stanley Cup winning team of 1934-35. He first played on a Stanley Cup winner in his one season with the Chicago Blackhawks (1933-34), where Conacher was also a first-team all-star.

As a hockey player, not only was Conacher a solid defenseman, he was also known for his hard hitting and aggressive defense. He was always among the penalty-minutes leaders.

Conacher was a member of the Toronto Maple Leaf baseball team that won the Triple-A championship in 1926. And, in addition to being one of the greatest lacrosse players in the country, he was also an undefeated light-heavyweight boxer (and fought an exhibition bout against Jack Dempsey in 1922).

As an amateur wrestler, Conacher won the Ontario championship in the 125 pound weight class as a 16 year old in 1916. According to The Ring Magazine, he became a pro wrestler in Toronto in 1932, and toured Canada and USA and never lost a match. Lionel even boxed a 4 round exhibition fight with the legendary Jack Dempsey

After retiring from sports, Conacher was elected as a member of the Liberal party to the Ontario legislature in 1937 and to the Canadian House of Commons in 1949. He died in 1954, suffering a heart attack while playing in a softball game.

Conacher was voted Canada's Athlete of the Half Century by the Canadian Press in 1950 and is a top candidate for Canada's athlete of the 20th century when that poll is taken.

All in all, it makes for an amazing story, nicely written for the intended audience by Richard Brignall. The 112 book is put out by James Lorimer & Company as part of their RecordBooks series. The intended audience is young Canadians, with a recommended reading level of 4.8.

Sometimes I wonder how these books about long ago heroes connect with today's young readers, but I have no doubts that this book will inspire all of it's readers. The Lionel Conacher story is of a Canadian sports super-hero, something everyone can be proud of.

Brignall has previously released similar titles with Small Town Glory: The story of the Kenora Thistles' remarkable quest for the Stanley Cup and Forever Champions: The Enduring Legacy of the Edmonton Grads Women's Basketball Team. Also in 2009 he is releasing Fearless: The Story of George Chuvalo, Canada's Greatest Boxer

Minor Hockey To NHL: Parents Survival Guide by Paul Valliant

I really enjoyed Bob McKenzie's book Hockey Dad. He talks of his own life as a hockey parent and youth coach, sharing what he's learned and how he grew as a parent and a person. As I read the book parts of the book I kept seeing myself or other sporting parents in the story. It was a real through provoking read on how parents are impacting their kids, and not always positively.

That got me thinking. The coaches of youth sports teams get to go clinics and seminars on how improve their coaching skills. The referees get to go to their own clinics and of course the players do, too. But there is no such education program on how to be a hockey parent. (Actually, just as I write this comes news of an education program for parents now existing for hockey parents in Calgary.) Maybe that is why we are doomed to repeat the "crazy" parent trend that can sometimes hurt our kids.

Enter Dr. Paul Valliant. He has a new book out called Minor Hockey To NHL: Parents Survival Guide. Through his own experiences, and through his insights as a psychologist, he informs hockey parents how to best assist their kids in the minor hockey system.

He gives parents an honest evaluation of many aspects of minor hockey. By doing so he gives parents an understanding of the rules, both written and unwritten, of minor hockey. With that understood, the parents can help their kids enjoy the game and take so much from it, both on and off the ice.

The book teaches parents to evaluate personality traits of players and coaches so you can best maximize the child's progression. With this knowledge you understand your impact and your coach's impact on young hockey players, and how to best motivate your child. Parents will know how to create a positive, rewarding environment for their children.

By reading Valliant's insights into the world of minor hockey, parents will also be able to maximize the highly rewarding experience of being a hockey parent. It is a great way to spend time with the kids and watch them grow, but also as a way for you to grow as a person and as a member of the community. By being proactive enough to identify the pitfalls Valliant identifies you will be prepared to be the best hockey parent you can be.

Amazon's New Kindle and Hockey e-Books

The new Kindle Wireless Reading Device has been released by Amazon. The e-book reader remains available in the United States, but not Canada, but for American hockey fans there are lots of hockey titles available for the Kindle.

Amazon.com has recently opened up the Kindle Store, including a number of hockey books. Here's a look at what is available:

Notable Titles:
The Game by Ken Dryden

The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team by Wayne Coffey

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber by Julian Rubinstein

Brodeur: Beyond the Crease by Martin Brodeur with Damien Cox

Between the Lines: Not-So-Tall Tales From Ray Scapinello by Ray Scapinello

Splendid Is The Sun: The 5,000 Year History of Hockey by George and Darill Fosty

Hockey Stories On And Off The Ice by Dan Diamond and James Duplacey

Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage & Triumph by Travis Roy with E.M. Swift

Here are the other titles available:

Pucks and Sticks and Dirty Tricks by Robert Fennell
Seahawk: Confessions of an Old Goalie by Bruce Valley
The Official Book of Team Canada from Eh to Zed: The World Junior Championships by Kevin Gibson
The Canada Cup of Hockey Fact and Stat Book by H.J. Anderson
The Hockey Drill Book by Dave Chambers
Hockey Tough by Saul Miller
Hockey's Most Wanted: The Top 10 Book by Floyd Connor
Hard Core Hockey by Rand Pecknold and Aaron Froeste
Hockey Legend Myth & Verse by Artica Burr
Hockey - A Game of Passion by Martin Lambert
The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey by Donald Ferguson
Gross Misconduct by Erik Cagle
Open Ice by Pat Hughes
Heart and Spirit - The Toronto Maple Leafs of 2001-2002 - A Fan's Journal by Doug Magwood
50 Mission Cap by Adrian Brijbassi
Wayne Gretzky by Matt Doeden

I'd Trade Him Again by Peter Pocklington, Foreword by Wayne Gretzky

One of the biggest hockey books of 2009 is without doubt Stephen Brunt's Gretzky's Tears: Hockey, Canada, and the Day Everything Changed.

Canada's leading sports journalist digs deep to recreate the events of the day Wayne Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles in 1988. He leaves almost no stone unturned as he expertly looks at what may be the most important event in the past 20 years of hockey history.

I say almost no stone unturned because there were two people Brunt was not able talk to about that infamous day - the Edmonton Oilers owner - the man who traded Wayne Gretzky - Peter Pocklington, and Wayne Gretzky himself.

Why is that? Pocklington would not talk, to no surprise, because he has his own book out now about his life and specifically about hockey, the Oilers and Gretzky. It's confrontationally called I'd Trade Him Again: Peter Pocklington on Gretzky, Politics and the Pursuit of the Perfect Deal.

Gretzky would not talk to Brunt claiming after 2 decades he had nothing left to say. Well it turns out Gretzky does have something more to say, because he curiously writes the foreword for Pocklington's book!

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

It turns out Gretzky and Pocklington are still friends, having patched things up over the years. This in itself probably shouldn't be a big surprise, as Gretzky has always been unfailingly loyal to his friends in the past. When Bruce McNall, the other important figure in the Gretzky trade, was in jail, Gretzky remained his friend, even visiting him in the slammer. And for a good portion of Wayne's life Pocklington was a very big part of his success, and vice versa.

But why Gretzky would choose to publicly re-align himself with the most hated hockey man in Alberta if not all of Canada is downright strange. Gretz has always been fiercely protective of his own squeaky clean image, although that sure has taken a beating with this whole Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy case, hasn't it? Chumming it up with Peter Puck won't do his image any favors.

It's just odd, almost as odd as the foreword itself.

Gretz has written a number of forewords and afterwords for various books, including books by Jean Beliveau, Cassie Campbell, Roy MacGregor, Ron Finn, Bob Costas and even Theo Fleury's new book Playing With Fire. Now Gretzky likely has someone actually write it for him and he just approves it and puts his name to it. After all, when does he have time to write forewords, until recently that is. But they all have a certain genuine sincerity to them. For this book, either Gretzky has a new writer or Pocklington has a strange control over him. Maybe it is just my own prejudices, but it reads more like something Pocklington wants Gretzky to be saying.

After all it is Gretzky's comments that in many ways sell this book. Only his words adorn the back of the book. It seems all preordained to benefit book sales.

Enough about Gretzky and the book's foreword. Let's get down to the author/subject of this book - Peter "Puck" Pocklington.

Pocklington does not so much write this book, as he contributes to it. It is actually written by Terry McConnell of the Edmonton Journal and J'Lyn Nye of Global Television. You get the feeling though that Pocklington has strong editorial control.

The authors present the story, but certainly not in the same hard-hitting fashion Stephen Brunt would have. They mostly set the scene as Pocklington sees it. They then let him fill in the blanks with his own commentary. The book is careful to tell only the story that Pocklington wants told, which is fine but disappointing. When forced to cover controversial material such as bankruptcy fraud charges or the Gainer's strike, he seems to conveniently leave issues aside, or at least discuss them with a revisionist twist.

Of course Pocklington's reputation in Canada is pretty much ruined. He insists the press and politics did a great smear job on him, but I'm sure he'd admit he didn't always do himself any favors. And again reader prejudices come into play here. Regardless, he is regarded in this country as a ruthless, greedy, scheming businessman always after the next big pay day. I think he has more of a heart than his reputation suggests, but he is far from trustworthy in Canadian eyes. Certainly not after all the controversies and now legal charges against him regarding bankrupty frauds.

So when in the book he says he almost traded franchises with Harold Ballard's Maple Leafs, or that he could have had a NBA team in Edmonton for just $6 million, I do not believe him. I believe there was probably something to it, but certainly nothing imminent as he lets us believe. Pocklington is a great story teller that way.

As for Pocklington's commentary on the Gretzky trade itself, the reason most people would be picking up this book, he comes across as quite believeable. He and the authors do a good job of recounting his lifelong business acumen to the point that he is actually quite admirable. He simply sums up the Gretzky trade as a necessary business transaction to keep the Oilers alive in Edmonton.

Now there is going to be a lot of belly-aching on that point, as a lot of Edmonton fans hate Pocklington to no end. But if you read the book with an open mind, especially with a mind shaped in the past 20 years where the Gretzky trade changed hockey for everyone - including fans - from a sport to a business, you will see Pocklington's point. It was necessary to trade Wayne Gretzky. Grabbing all that cash certainly didn't look good, but Pocklington was a smart enough visionary to see the coming hockey landscape. He knew salaries were about to explode, and that the Oilers dynasty could not survive.

Of course, Pocklington probably could have eased his problems over the years in Edmonton had he been able to swallow his pride and bring in business partners with the necessary cash infusion. But he was vain to do that. He wanted to be the star of the show, and though he brought the Oilers to the NHL and did his best to keep them there, he was unable to bring himself to do what he ultimately had to do.

It's funny. After putting this book down I do have more respect for Peter Pocklington as a businessman and as a hockey man. And I think that is all Pocklington was after in doing this project, you know, plus the money grab. Some things never change.

I also have a slightly different vision of Wayne Gretzky. I don't think it is this book that changed my impression so much as the recent tarnishing of Gretzky's reputation in Phoenix as well as Stephen Brunt's painting him with a shade of greed.

I guess ultimately that is why Gretzky and Pocklington are still good friends - they both love hockey, and they both love the pursuit of the perfect deal.

Tough Guys by Eric Zweig

Last week I looked at Eric Zweig's new book Fever Season. In a very timely release, Zweig offered a novel based loosely upon actual events of 1919, specifically a deadly flu epidemic that cancelled the Stanley Cup finals and claimed the life of Bad Joe Hall.

Well it turns out Zweig has a second young adult release based upon that flu season. Through Lorimer Publishers Zweig has also released Tough Guys: Hockey Rivals in Times of War and Disaster.

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

Unlike Fever Season, Tough Guys is not a fictional piece. It is the actual story of Bad Joe Hall and Newsy Lalonde, two of the game's earliest superstars. The two had a fierce rivalry, drawing fans to their epic matches. World War I would force the bitter enemies to become teammates. Yet just when the fighting overseas comes to an end, the world is devastated by the Spanish Flu. The virus even effects the Stanley Cup and ultimately claims Hall's life.

It is a compelling story, but told with a young audience in mind.

"I can barely remember a time when I wasn't intrigued by this hardly known fact," says the author. "It was about 1973 when I first learned that the 1919 Stanley Cup final had been cancelled. I decided to write about the story behind the cancellation because I know my ten-year-old self would have loved this book."

Zweig adds "We like to think of our sports heroes as invincible, but Lalonde and Hall could not escape the suffering caused by Spanish Influenza which actually killed more people than the war. The book shows how strong the human spirit is and how rivalries, and even the cancellation of the Stanley Cup playoffs, become trivial in the face of human suffering.

Zweig is an experienced youth writer. He now has 10 kids or young adult titles published.