Ranking the 2007 Hockey Book Titles

It is a question I've been asked commonly this hockey book season: Which of the new hockey books is the best?

Unlike in 2006, I did not feel that there was truly a must-have title that would go on to be a classic. Of course such books are rare in jock literature, but last year I felt Stephen Brunt's Searching For Bobby Orr will achieve that lofty status.

Without that clear number one, it really is tough to say which hockey book I would deem to be the best. The content should be the bottom line, and therefore any listing is really based on personal preference.

But people want to know, and Christmas shopping time is running out. So without further adieu, here's my ranking of the best newhockey books published in 2007.

#1 World of Hockey - I really enjoyed this IIHF release because I felt it offered the greatest educational experience. No matter what age or level of fan you may be, this book will wow you but not overwhelm you with information. It is also a beautifully laid out book with great historic photography. All in all, I have no second thoughts on naming this book as the best of the 2007 hockey book season.

#2 King Of Russia - From a literary stand point, this is probably as close as any book gets to the classic label. It is a fascinating look into one year of a great coach, a strange but passionate hockey land, and many characters.

#3 Gretzky To Lemieux - Another rare literary contribution. The iconic moment sells itself (has it really been 2o years already?), but a very nice job by Ed Willes here. He captures all the moments and lays them out nicely.

#4 Clancy With The Puck - It's supposed to be a kid's title, but this is probably the most beautifully produced hockey book I've ever seen. Great work Raincoast! Casey At The Bat hits the ice.

#5 Walking With Legends - A typical jock book, but from a unique vantage point. Hockey Night In Canada has been the voice of hockey for generations, and author Ralph Mellanby saw it all. He shares he memories of the players, the great moments, and the broadcasters who help make our favorite moments so memorable.
#6 Maple Leafs Top 100 - Beautiful book, interesting project. Could have been even better, but it is certainly a great addition to your collection or your coffee table.

#7 THN's Top 60 since 1967 - The Hockey News didn't put a lot of money into production quality, which was a disappointment, but the scope of their project is interesting nonetheless. And no, its not a regurgitation of their Top 50 Players Of All Time project from 10 years ago.

#8 McCown's Law - Controversy sells, and lots of hockey books attempted to stir some up this season. But no one does it better than Bob McCown

#9 Future Greats and Heartbreaks - A great author with a great idea, but no real defining moment or conclusion. The author attempts to get an inside look in the world of scouting. This book has potential to be a good read a few years down the road as we begin to look back at the draft classes of 2006 and 2007.

#10 Red, White and Blues - A real nice project here by Timothy Gassen, and a real unexpected surprise that would be a great addition to any collection. The topic of Indiana hockey is probably too small to warrant a higher ranking, which is unfair to Gassen I know. A must have for WHA fans or those curious about Gretzky and Messier's days in Indy.

#11 By The Numbers - I like this book because it is different. The topic is unique, thoroughly researched and a great conversation starter. The book is beautiful in it's layout and photography. Every hockey fan can enjoy this book.

#12 H.E.A.R.T - Cassie Campbell's juvenile entry is part autobiographical and part how-to. A great Christmas gift idea for a young athlete in your family, male or especially female.

#10 Reflections - Incredible photography, and a good cause. But no captions and no reading.

#11 Maple Leafs A-Z - I'm not a big fan of this book.

2007 Hockey Books not yet reviewed:

As the Puck Turns by Brian Conacher
Minnesota North Stars: History and Memories with Lou Nanne by Bob Showers
The Complete Hockey Dictionary: More than 12,000 Words and Phrases and Their Specific Hockey Definitions by Andrew Podnieks
Hockey's Young Guns: 25 Inside Stories on Making It to "the Show" by The Hockey News
Lord Stanley: The Man Behind the Cup by Kevin Shea and John Jason Wilson
New Game: How Hockey Saved Itself by Steve Paikin
Travels with Stanley by the Hockey Hall of Fame
Cold-cocked: On Hockey by Lorna Jackson

All in all, 2007 has been a decent hockey book season. Depending on your personal tastes, I'm certain there is at least a couple of great titles for every hockey fan this Christmas season.

Walking With Legends by Ralph Mellanby

As a man who spent his entire adult life in show business, Ralph Mellanby knows controversy sells.

So when promoting his new book Walking With Legends: The Real Stories of Hockey Night in Canada, the 73-year-old former executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada hasn't shied away from sharing his thoughts on NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

"Bettman to me is the real problem for hockey," said Mellanby.

"He's done so much damage to hockey it may never recover. We don't have time to go through the litany of errors."

Mellanby backs his case citing teams in bad hockey markets, ignoring Canadian and European opportunities, a deteriorating product, turbulent labour relations, the reluctance to embrace change and some controversial TV deals.

"Hockey has never been in worse straits," Mellanby said. "I'm an elder statesman now and I feel at times like a lone voice in the wilderness, but I'm not completely alone. The great minds of the game I talk to agree on these things, but no one is listening at the top."

Over his 2 decade career as the man behind Canada's most famous television show, Mellanby has talked to many of hockey's great minds. In fact, he hired many of them.

In his book Walking With Legends, Mellanby pays tribute to the many faces of both HNIC and the NHL. It is somehow fitting that the man behind the most influential program in hockey history is quick to give credit to the people he employed as opposed to getting higher respect himself.

The 5 time Emmy winner Mellanby remembers all the greats on HNIC, looking back at Foster and Bill Hewitt, Danny Gallivan and Dick Irvin, Dan Kelly and Bob Cole and Dave Hodge. Mellanby saves his two best chapters for his two biggest risks and two biggest rewards - Howie Meeker and Don Cherry. And, interestingly, he admits he was completely wrong in thinking that Ron MacLean, arguably the best face of the show, was doomed to fail.

Mellanby also takes a look at the 1972 Summit Series, the 1980 USA Miracle On Ice, Harold Ballard, Gary Bettman, several of the NHL's greatest players over the years, and his son Scott Mellanby, a long time NHL star himself.

All in all Walking With Legends is a solid read with some nice insights, particularly on the HNIC faces we all have welcomed into our homes every Saturday night.

Future Greats And Heartbreaks by Gare Joyce

Gary Joyce is a literary gift to the sports world. He is just a marvelous writer, able to paint beautiful imagery with his keyboard. And hockey fans should count themselves as very lucky that Joyce accidentally became a hockey writer.

That's one the earliest of revelations in his new book Future Greats and Heartbreaks: a Season Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts. He also reveals a life long passion of studying and analyzing sports drafts, a passion that many fans share.

For some fans it is all about hope. Hope of what is to come. For others, like Joyce, it is about academics, which in the sports world doesn't always have a place.

To further educate himself and his readers, Joyce sets out to explore the tightly locked hidden world of talent scouting. He is in search of the theory behind scouting, looking for trends as surely there must be some careful strategy when handing out million dollar contracts to junior players and college kids.

Frankly, there isn't. Apparently. The author concludes "There was no unified theory, no logic." In that sense, I felt what the author must have ultimately felt - disappointment.

Not disappointment in the book, as it is a gem by Doubleday Canada and worthy of your purchasing consideration. No, the disappointment lies in the scouting institution.

I think Joyce, like myself and probably many other fans, entered into this book with some assumptions about the depth scouts go to dig information on the players. Sure, we all know they dissect their on ice performance to no end, but I always figured what separates the best drafting teams from the worst drafting teams was the in depth background checks, personality analysis, parental and other outside influences, and any last circumstance that might affect their play and their development. When ranking 100s of players on a draft list, I figured it was the human intangibles that more often than not separated players of equal value.

Wrong.

Or at least that is the way it was with Doug MacLean's Columbus Blue Jackets organization, the only team that would grant the journalist mostly unfettered access to the scouts, the meetings and the war room for the 2006 and 2007 NHL draft.

The Jackets were a notoriously poor drafting team under MacLean, and when I read it was Columbus who Joyce was shadowing, a warning flag immediately shot up for me. And I think I was right.

You almost hope Joyce's findings were skewed by this poor organization. In all likelihood any skewing is not terribly significant, given the NHL's crap shoot history at the draft, but it sure would be interesting to see how Detroit or Ottawa does things in comparison.

Joyce looks at what life is like to be an unheralded scout - low pay, constant travel, terrible motel rooms and no thanks. He also exposes it as surprisingly political, and, not surprisingly, old school. He then tries to use his journalism training to scout player, with the intent of comparing his findings with that of the traditional bird dogs.

I think Joyce's look at the scouting world has the potential to let that old school scouting world look at itself and it's archaic ways. I'm almost shocked at the lack of off-ice background work done by the scouts. In many ways the trained journalist was able to see more than the scouts.

Not that that helped matters in the end, though. Joyce was not high on Phil Kessel, based largely on character. It is still early, but Kessel is now proving his detractors all wrong in Boston. Joyce also gives us some interesting and personal looks into the lives of prospects like Angelo Esposito and Akim Aliu, and his own thoughts on many, many other prospects. By doing so he lets his readers get a hint of what it must be like to on the opposite end of the scouting spectrum: to be the player everyone is tearing apart.

After reading this book, the draft will remain about hope for me. But I'm not certain it is about academics now, if it ever was. Perhaps the best drafting teams have already figured that out and corrected it.

Though many of the mysteries of NHL scouting remain unsolved (or perhaps unsolvable?) Gare Joyce's Future Greats and Heartbreaks: a Season Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts is an excellent hockey book. Check it out today at your local bookseller.

Win A Copy Of This Book! Hockey Book Reviews.com in conjunction with Double Day/Random House publishing is giving away 2 signed copies of this book. All you have to do is tell me two other hockey books published by Double Day/Random House in 2007. Here's a good place to look. Then email your answers and to hockeybookcontest@hotmail.com. A draw from all correct answers will take place on December 1st, 2007!

Also See: Gare Joyce is once again trying his hand at blogging, offering http://scoutshonourbygarejoyce.blogspot.com/ as a post script of the book. Who knows, over time it may be just the beginning of the next chapter.

H.E.A.R.T. by Cassie Campbell

When the topic of hockey's greatest leader comes up, the usual suspects are always named: Mark Messier. Steve Yzerman. Phil Esposito. Joe Sakic.

I think the greatest leader in hockey may not even have been a NHL guy. In fact, the greatest leader may not have been a guy at all.

As the long time captain of Canada's national women's team, Cassie Campbell led the nation to two Olympic golds and a world championship. She is one of Canada's all time most decorated athletes, adding 5 more world championships, as well as an Olympic and world championship silver medal to her medal count. She is the only Canadian hockey player to captain back to back Olympic gold medal championships.

And she did all that while earning an honours degree in Sociology and raising 100's of 1000's of dollars for charity.

No one earned more respect as a leader than Campbell. Wayne Gretzky was very complimentary of her as a great hockey leader:

"I was totally impressed with her ability to motivate the Canadian women's team both on and off the ice. Not only did she work hard as a player during the actual games, but she seemed to go above and beyond her duties as captain to try and keep her team together off the ice."

Now that she has retired, Cassie Campbell has dedicated herself to being a true ambassador to not just women's hockey, but all of hockey. She is truly an amazing and inspiring person we can all look up to.

One of Campbell's initiatives is the new book H.E.A.R.T . In the book Campbell shares her secrets of success, and how we can all use not only to be better athletes, but better people.

H is for hard work. E is for experience and education. A is for attitude. R is for responsibility and respect. T is for teamwork. Combined they form the word heart, but they also form success.

And this book isn't all self help talk. She also talks about her many experiences she had while on the national team for 13 years. She includes several great stories, and talks about her teammates and her opponents.

Though the book is considered juvenile literature, this book isn't specifically geared towards kids, although they will be easily draw by it. Adults can also take a lot from this book.

Kids and adults, girls and boys, women and men, hockey fans and non hockey fans will like it and hopefully latch on to the principles quickly.

When asked the question 'who should read this book?' the answer is simple: Everybody.

Hockey Trivia Anyone?

Hey what sports doesn't like a little hockey trivia? And it makes for a perfect small Christmas gift or stocking stuffer.

Well there's no shortage of options of trivia books again this Christmas.

The king of hockey trivia is Don Weekes, author of (by my count) 24 hockey trivia books! In 2007 he's teamed with Greystone Books for two new titles: Shootout Hockey Trivia and Crease-Crashing Hockey Trivia, both selling for under $10!

By the way, here's some Don Weekes trivia for you - Weekes is an award winning television producer-director at CTV Montreal, and his trivia has been used by TV stations, radio stations, websites and magazines all around the world. Most interestingly, his hockey trivia has ended up on cartons of Post cereal and Jell-O Pudding Cups!

Jesse Ross and Raincoast Books offers something a little more geared towards younger fans in the new title: Hockey: Games, Trivia, Quizzes and More! There's trivia, crosswords, matching games, word searches and puzzles. Its a fun book from the author of The Amazing Allstar Hockey Activity Book

There's one more book I think you shouldn't be too hasty to pass over. If you like to read my lead stories at Greatest Hockey Legends.com, you'll probably enjoy Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Shoots and Scores!, published in Canada by Raincoast Books. It's an eclectic collection stories, facts, and more often than not hockey history, the type of stuff I love to headline over at Legends. You'll learn lots in short bursts, and have a lot of fun doing it.

World Of Hockey

In 2008 the International Ice Hockey Federation is holding the world championships in Canada for the very first time. Obviously the worlds clash with the NHL playoffs from a timing stand point, and traditionally the worlds aren't as overly accepted in Canada as they are over in Europe, but somehow it seems odd that hockey's world championships have never been held in the sport's motherland.

What makes it even weirder is 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the IIHF, a fact I don't think a lot of North American fans realized until recent marketing campaigns.

With the games coming to Quebec City and to Halifax, the IIHF has many commemorative projects in the works, including special events, ceremonies, and interactive exhibits both in person and online. A full list of events can be seen here.

For hockey book lovers, the IIHF has just released a beautiful 228 page coffee table book, World of Hockey: Celebrating a Century of the IIHF. The project was closely directed by Szymon Szemberg and largely written by veteran power writer Andrew Podnieks. The project also had special contributions from some of international hockey's foremost experts, including my buddies Lucas Aykroyd and Patrick Houda.

The book chronicles the worldwide growth of the game hockey, concentrating most of its attention outside of North America. It examines how hockey developed in Europe and elsewhere from an aristocratic game into a 65 member nations that comprise the IIHF today. Every nation, even Argentina, India and South Africa, are given time in this undertaking.

The book is incredibly readable, and highly educational. It opens with a look at the birth of hockey in Montreal, and moves to the birth of what became the IIHF.

Houda writes chapter 2, "Canada shows Europe how to play the game." It is simply eloquent writing, smooth and flowing, but with typical Houda trivia facts thrown in. As with anything Houda contributes, you will find yourself learning the most interesting of facts, such as the story of Romania's Prince "Bazu" Cantacuzino, decorated athlete and war hero.

The book moves on through the decades, looking at the rise and collapse of an early Czechoslovakian powerhouse and then the sheer dominance of the Soviets. The modern era featuring the end of hockey's power balance is perfectly featured, with looks at recent successes by Czech Republic, Slovakia, Canada and Sweden.

The book is laid out beautifully, with a great selection of photos. The opening collage of all the various national team jerseys captures your interest immediately, but my favorite image has to be that of the Hungarian hockey fan on page 176.

The book includes an extensive statistics section, as well as in depth looks at key international hockey legends such Paul Loicq, Harry Watson, Jaroslav Drobny, Harry Sinden, Viktor Tikhonov, Borje Salming, Vladislav Tretiak, Dominik Hasek, Jari Kurri, Ryan Smyth and Peter Bondra. The women's game also is given great coverage.

The IIHF's greatest moments are all featured, including Peter Forsberg’s 1994 Olympic-winning shootout goal, Poland’s shocking 6-4 win over the Soviet Union at the 1976 IIHF World Championship, America's Miracle On Ice in 1980, and, even though it wasn't an IIHF event, the 1972 Summit Series.

All in all World of Hockey a beautiful book and an educational joy for any hockey fan. I highly recommend this book.

By The Numbers: From 00 To 99

Hockey is a game of numbers. Goals. Assists. Penalty Minutes. Salaries, nowadays. But no numbers are more revered than a player's sweater number.

Sweater numbers not only identify players, but forever etch a player into our memory. Think of Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Orr or Mario Lemieux. The numbers on their backs are often as iconic as they are.

Hockey Night In Canada with author Scott Morrison has come out with Hockey Night in Canada By the Numbers: From 00 to 99. The book looks at the great personalities for every number, from 00 to 99. Incredible photography and fast facts make this a beautiful book to thumb through.

Controversy is always a great seller, so this book attempts to do so by ranking who was the best player to wear each number. Such strategy is a brilliant way to spark a lively debate and rekindle a lot of fond memories.

Can anyone catch Bobby Orr for jersey number 4? Not even Jean Beliveau? How fast is Vincent Lecavalier climbing the list?

How about jersey #9, once the most revered number of all? How do you choose from Gordie Howe, Rocket Richard and Bobby Hull?

#19 is another topic of hot debate. Steve Yzerman? Bryan Trottier? Joe Sakic? Larry Robinson?

And how can you possibly choose from all the goalies who traditionally wore #1 or #30?

The story of each player's choice of jersey number is often explained. And there is tons of antectdotal information through out the book. Who else wore #99 and #66? What skaters wore jersey #1?

This is a real fun book, blessed with great production quality and photos, and fascinating information. I really enjoyed this title.