Hockey Book Review: Striking Silver

A full eight years before the Miracle on Ice, the US Olympic hockey team pulled off one of the most miraculous accomplishments in international hockey history. The 1972 US team stunned the hockey world by garnering a silver medal at the Winter Games in Japan.

The silver medal championship was somewhat anti-climatic by today's gold-medal showdown standards. Back then the order of finish was determined by your win-loss record and your goals for and against. After upsetting the Czechoslovakians, Team USA sat in the arena in their casual wear awaiting the outcome of the Russia-Czechoslovakian game. When the Russians won, as expected, the Americans knew they had clinched a very unexpected silver medal, the only medal taken home by American males in the Sapporo games.

The story is even more fascinating when you learn of the military background many of these players were drafted into before the games, including a few who wandered the jungles of Vietnam. Then there was the surprising camaraderie between the Soviet and American players, despite the Cold War's icy grip. And then there's the story of coach Murray Williamson, perhaps as an important a coach in US hockey history as there is, though he gets no credit a la Herb Brooks or Bob Johnson.

Twin brothers Tom and Jerry Caraccioli have chronicled this fascinating saga in their new book, Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America's Forgotten Hockey Team from Sports Publishing L.L.C. Although as goalie Peter Sears suggests, this is the team that no one knew about to begin with.

After laying the ground work, the Caracciolis embarked on a series of interviews with members of the forgotten team, sharing stories of personal triumph and sacrifice. While the interviews don't necessarily flow together as nicely as you would hope, they make for great short reads.

Stars like Mark Howe, Robbie Ftorek, Henry Boucha, Tim Sheehy and Lefty Curran share their stories as do the long forgotten about players like Huffer Christiansen, Daddy Nas Naslund Tom Mellor and Charlie Brown.

The success of the 1972 team was largely ignored due to sparse television coverage by NBC thanks to severe time zone differences. Any recognition earned was further pushed into obscurity when the Americans pulled off the Miracle On Ice in 1980. The Caracciolis examine how 1972 laid the groundwork for success in 1980 and the growth of American hockey beyond.

Striking Silver was one of the most overlooked books in 2006-07. It is truly worth a read. It's not totally about hockey, but about working hard and having dreams come true.

Overall Book Rating: 3/5 Second Liner

Rocket Richard: Reluctant Hero

Friends, I have made a mistake.

In 2000, not long after his death, a coffee table book about Rocket Richard debuted. Chris Goyens and Frank Orr teamed up with Team Power Publishing to give use Maurice Richard: Reluctant Hero.

At the time the book market was flooded with Rocket Richard material. I recall looking at this coffee table book and scoffing at the initial $50. Coffee table books, at least in the hockey genre, tend to be regurgitated photography with very little content. I put the book back on the shelf and probably grabbed a couple of other books for my $50, with the idea maybe I'd check this book out of the library one day.

Boy oh boy was I ever wrong to dismiss this book so early. I finally got a hold of a copy, and I have to say that this may very well be the best book on Maurice Richard that I have ever seen.

It is a coffee table book, so photos are front and center. But there are so many images in here I have never seen, from both on and off the ice. The photos really give a glimpse into the Rocket's life on the ice, but more importantly off the ice including both in the dressing room and with his family.

The true value of this book is the written content. It is a bit of a patch job of selected stories an events as opposed to a perfectly fluent piece of literature, but the stories are greatly insightful and easy to retain. You really can flip open a page or two and read just a bit, reminisce at the photos, and feel that you have just experienced a piece of hockey history.

This book is absolutely beautiful and a must own for any Montreal Canadiens or hockey history buff!

Overall Book Rating: 3/5 Second Liner

Book Review: Walter Gretzky

Hockey is a game of great comebacks. Few comebacks are as inspirational as that of Walter Gretzky.

Walter Gretzky needs no introduction. He is in every way the most ordinary, most humble and most likable man. But he is also the father and teacher of the greatest hockey player of all time. Wayne Gretzky once said his immense talent was not just god given, but "Wally given."

His status as #99's mentor and father and his insightful teachings of the game combine with his amazing ordinariness make him not only a hockey legend in his own right, but the ultimate Canadian hockey dad.

Any Gretzky fan has to be curious what it was like to in the Gretzky house. Walter Gretzky's book On Family, Hockey and Healing gives us not only a glimpse at what it was like for Wayne and Walter on their rise to hockey celebrity, but also about life on the farm, life as a telephone repairman, life as a less famous member of the household and finally life as Canada's most modest celebrity.

The best part about this book is just how easy it reads. I'm a notoriously slow reader, but I zipped through this one. I likened the book's readability to that of the storytelling of an older family member whose stories you can just never get enough of. Walter Gretzky tells a variety of stories that kept me glued to book cover to cover.

And its not all stories about Wayne. In fact, there were very few stories of Wayne as a NHL superstar, which was a bit surprising and very much relieving. Instead Walter talks about staying up late to watch west coast games, silly hi-jinx he and his buddies would get into all around the globe, and of course about the inevitable run-ins with fans. This book really is about Walter, not Wayne, and I'm thankful the publishers towed that line through and through.

The book was written in cooperation with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Walter suffered a severe brain aneurysm in the early 1990s, and it truly is a miracle that he survived. The stroke wiped out many beloved memories, including most of his son's great accomplishments in the NHL.

Through Wayne, Bruce McNall and others, Walter had the best medical coverage money could buy, and Walter realizes how lucky he is compared to others. It is truly amazing what he had to go through. I had very little idea of what are strokes and the recovery processes entailed. Now I am aware, so it is definitely mission accomplished for Walter and the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Walter dedicates this book and much of his time nowadays to spreading the word about strokes and his fight for recovery. It's his way of giving back, and of inspiring others.

He is an ordinary man who has lived an extraordinary life. That makes for an extraordinary story captured nicely by Random House, and was the basis for the critically acclaimed CBC docudrama Waking Up Wally: The Walter Gretzky Story.

Overall Book Rating: 4/5 All Star

When The Lights Went Out

I finally cracked the spine on Gare Joyce's much acclaimed title When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey's Cold War and Changed the Game.

The book covers the infamous Canadian-Soviet brawl at the 1987 World Junior Hockey Championships. "The Punch-Up In Piestany" featured the likes of Brendan Shanahan, Pierre Turgeon and Theoren Fleury vs. Alexander Mogilny, Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov. The incident is one of the most infamous in hockey history, yet, as Joyce leads us to discover, one of the most significant as well.

Joyce is one of Canada's top sports writers, and almost certainly the tops when it comes to the junior hockey scene. His writing really does define him as "one of this continent's master craftsmen of sporting prose" who is capable of authoring "a superb piece of storytelling," as the book's cover boasts.

They say don't judge a book by its cover, and that would be good advice to heed with "Lights." The cover is unattractive and simplistic, although the Autumn 2007 paperback release (second image) is somewhat improved. But once you crack open the prologue you quickly realize that this is a book that you must read. It isn't a book about a hockey fight, nor a hockey game nor a hockey tournament. This is a book about hockey history, and how the events of this moment in time would change hockey forever.

After reeling me in hook, line and sinker with the prologue, I was ready jump into the main event and the interpretation of its' aftermath. But of course Joyce has to set up the background and the main characters before proceeding. For someone who at least pretends to know my international hockey history, I found this step to cause me to lose my steam. Though obviously necessary, I found it a bit long.

Once I worked my way through the background and through the tournament, I finally found the story's centerpiece. Instead of recreating the scene as it was, Joyce takes a unique approach and tells the story of him watching the game on DVD some 20 years after the fact. Much of the time I felt like I was reading his research notes. While I found the style cumbersome at first, I got used to it and realized it really allowed Joyce to properly display his research. All of his interviews are in past tense, thus allowing the story's characters to comment at the perfect time.

I find the book's true strength is Joyce's unique look into the lives of many of the players. Joyce doesn't focus strictly on the Canadians, but gives equal time to the Russians, allowing for a truly in depth and balanced look at not only this game and this tournament, but the long term aftermath.

The rare look into the Soviet players' lives in the days when the Iron Curtain was crumbling but still standing firm was a treat for me. Reading about Alexander Mogilny, Sergei Fedorov and Vladimir Konstantinov's unique backgrounds was truly unique. With many Canadian and Russian protagonists he follows up on each career and life, warts and all, allowing for an incredibly well pieced together portrait of some notable hockey players.

And it's not just the superstars who Joyce profiles. I really enjoyed learning about the lesser-knowns. Players like Stephane Roy, Patrick Roy's brother. And Steve Nemeth, a leader who chose not to fight, and paid an unnecessary price to do so. And Evgeni Davydov, the ridiculously talented winger who never could add up the sum of all his parts.

I opened "Lights" fully aware of the critical acclaim it got. The book did not disappoint. I'd strongly recommend it to any hockey fan.

Overall Book Rating: 4/5 All Star

Long Shot: How the Winnipeg Falcons Won the First Olympic Hockey Gold by Eric Zweig

The improbable story of Frank Fredrickson and his childhood friends probably could not be made up by the best of fiction writers.

And that's the best part - the story of the Winnipeg Falcons is completely true. And it is all captured in Long Shot: How the Winnipeg Falcons won the first Olympic hockey goldby Eric Zweig.

| Buy The Book At Amazon or Chapters|

The sons of Icelandic immigrants and friends since boyhood, the Winnipeg Falcons were a superbly talented hockey team of just eight players who brought home Canada's first Olympic gold medal in hockey in 1920. But before they became world champions, the Falcons endured years of prejudice on and off the ice, and several close calls during combat service in World War I. And don't forget life-long infatuations with violins and aviation!

This is the real life story of an underdog hockey team that would not quit and became world champions. It is written by author and renowned hockey historian Eric Zweig.

The book is the quickest of reads, at just 112 tiny pages. It should be noted that Long Shot is classified as juvenile non-fiction. It is a great introduction to the fantastic story, even if you're an adult. But if you're looking for a deeper connection with the characters and events, you will have to look elsewhere.

But make no mistake, this book is thorough. The author even writes "It took me 15 days to write this book . . . but 15 years to do the research."

The tiny book does include 9 black and white photographs, all of which are very interesting. I especially enjoy the photo of the 1920 Swiss Olympic team, with the goaltender wearing the shirt and tie!

The Best of Jim Coleman

Not evening aware of its existence, I recently accidentally stumbled up on the book The Best of Jim Coleman : Fifty Years of Canadian Sport from the Man Who Saw It All. I have to say I was wowed with the wide variety of not only hockey history, but sporting history witnessed and articulated by arguably Canada's most influential sports writer.

The book is a collection of Coleman's best articles and columns from a career spanning over 50 years. The collection was put together by another of Canada's greatest sports writers, Jim Taylor.

Here's how Ian MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun describes the Coleman compendium:

From Coleman's 2,500 columns, Taylor has selected stories about King Clancy, and Robinson before baseball's integration, about war ending and fish tales and bear tales and discovering, in 1943, that 1908 heavyweight champion Jack Johnson was on display in a freak show. Coleman's columns are a Canterbury Tales of sports as he introduces readers to colourful, odd characters, themselves often the storytellers in his columns.

Amazon.ca says: Jim Coleman saw the Victoria Cougars win the Stanley Cup in 1925 and the Team Canada-Russia hockey showdown in 1972. He saw Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth slam homers in training camp and was there when Jack Dempsey KO'd Jack Sharkey. He interviewed a young man named Jackie Robinson who wistfully dreamed of the day when black men might play in baseball's major leagues. From 1939 until his death at 89, Coleman covered every sport imaginable with eloquence, wit and an unfailing love that earned him a position as Canada's first nationally syndicated sports columnist, membership in five Canadian Sports Halls of Fame, the Order of Canada and status as the country's most beloved sportswriter.

I'm a tunnel-visioned hockey fan. I honestly don't follow any other sports beyond a passive interest at best. So I skipped through much of the book looking for the hockey stories. There certainly are a number of gems to be found.

He talks about Foster Hewitt in a 1939 column, recalls the "mighty" Sprague Cleghorn and Si Griffis in 1943 and Lester Patrick in 1949, and tells a hilarious story of a practical joke played on NHL president Red Dutton where a goose was placed in his hotel bathtub.

It is interesting to see how writing styles have changed. Back in the old days hockey writers had a lot more freedom to be wordsmiths as opposed to just journalists. Check out this piece of writing from 1940 on the incomparable King Clancy:

"If you are a constant reader of the daily blats you will have observed that Frank "King" Clancy, the shillelagh-swinging Celt from Ottawa, is still slugging sundry citizens across the chops. King Clancy is acting in this bellicose fashion despite the fact that he has retired from active participation in the sanguinary sport of puck-chasing and has donned the uniform and attendant dignity of a National Hockey League referee."

Or how he describes New York Rangers defenseman Ching Johnson in 1946:

Out of the west one day roared that irrepressible fellow, Ivan "Ching" Johnson. Ivan, you will recall, was the large chappie who belted the bejabbers out of incoming forwards but always wore a wide and most pleasant-looking grin when performing those robust chores. Actually, his grin was a peculiar facial grimace and Ivan wasn't entirely the gentle soul that he appeared to be. Those who played alongside him will tell you that his lips curved back that way simply because he was grinding his teeth fearsomely and uttering threats to the enemy.

I also really enjoy a 1958 column comparing Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe:

"There are purists who will tell you that Gordie Howe is the peer of Richard as a hockey player. All of which probably is true and all of which, as far as I am concerned, is for the birds. Give me Maurice Richard and I'll fill every hockey rink in North America. Give me an entire team of Gordie Howes and I'll have the greatest hockey team in history - but how would they do at the box office?

For a parallel with the case of Richard and Howe, it is necessary to take a look at baseball when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were teammates on the New York Yankees. Manager Miller Huggins always said that, on a day-to-day basis, Gehrig was the better ballplayer. But it was the mighty Ruth who drew the spectators into the ballparks. Ruth was the Maurice Richard of baseball."

Then there was his coverage of the 1972 Summit Series. For an idea of what he had to say back then, here's the four headlines from the articles in the book: Whose National Game?; A Few Words From Captain Phil; One For All The Marbles; and Never A Doubt.

All in all, The Best of Jim Coleman is a fascinating book that sports fans from all genres and all generations can enjoy.

Overall Book Rating: 5/5 Hall of Famer

Searching For Bobby Orr

I was surprised to see Stephen Brunt's latest book Searching for Bobby Orr out on paperback already. It is also available in hardcover, and later in 2007 it will be available in mass-market paperback.

Brunt's biography was the class of the 2006-07 hockey book season, bar none. I am a notoriously slow reader, but I devoured this book in only a couple of days. It is a super-easy read but retains the high literary quality that escapes so many hockey biographical books. A super job by Mr. Brunt, one of Canada's top hockey journalists, and beautifully designed by the folks at Knopf Canada and Random House.

Searching for Bobby Orr is the perfect title. Everyone knows of Bobby Orr, but so few actually know him. This book allows readers from every generation to find out for themselves who Bobby Orr, hockey player and, to a lesser degree, person, was.

Brunt represents a generation that grew up idolizing Orr. I've seen reviews from that generation which suggest the book offers nothing new, although as a well read hockey historian I can attest that while that might be true to some degree, no book packages it all together so nicely.

And even more importantly, the book reads excellently for the following generation, which includes myself, that grew up having never seen Orr play, but knowing he was the greatest defenseman, if not player, in the history of hockey. While Brunt might not quite crack all of the mysteries of Bobby Orr, perhaps that is actually for the best.

Orr is an intensely private man, almost to a fault. He is so private that he refused to contribute to Brunt's book in any way, and, according to Brunt, let it be known to his family and closest friends not to participate in such endeavors. Brunt is completely open about this and does the best he can, the best anyone has ever accomplished on Orr. He relies on secondary sources, the likes of Bucko McDonald, the former NHL defenseman who coached Bobby as a junior; Wren Blair, the Boston scout that worked so hard to secure Orr's services; and Cora Wild, who together with husband Jack, billeted young Bobby when he left home to play for the Oshawa Generals en route to his big league hockey dreams.

If it wasn't for Orr's legion of fans, led by none other than Don Cherry's continual championing of Orr as hockey's greatest player ever (and, by the way, Cherry very well may be right on this topic, as he often is), Orr may have been happy to live the rest of his life in peace and quiet, avoiding the spotlight altogether. That would be a shame, as somehow keeping quiet off the ice somehow erodes the legacy of greatness on the ice. Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Phil Esposito embraced the spotlight, and Rocket Richard could not possibly escape it and learned to live with it. As a result their legacies will live on forever.

Without a great collection of video evidence or literary excellence on his career, following generations have had a tough time truly understanding just how great Bobby Orr was. Thanks to Stephen Brunt's book Searching for Bobby Orr, Bobby Orr's legacy will live on forever, too.

Overall Book Rating: 4/5 All Star

P.S. For serious Bobby Orr fans, and for the curious just wanting to witness the on-ice greatness, be sure to check out the incredible DVD The Best of Bobby Orr.