Worst Hockey books ever

[Jets4Life]

"Fire on Ice" by Eric Lindros. He wrote it in the fall of 1991, before he had ever played a game in the NHL. Self-serving, and short in content.

 

[Howie Hodge]

Did someone say Stan Fischler?

It's like members of Pink Floyd campaigning to get the drugs out of the music scene.

I agree with you on Fischler, he's a pure hack.

Going to have to argue The Floyd comment. Original Guitar Player Syd Barrett was a schizophrenic who exacerbated his problems through the use of acid.

Keyboard player Rick Wright had a nasty cocaine habit in the late seventies and early eighties.

Old clips from the late sixties and early seventies (Think Live At Pompeii) show they certainly used cannibals at that time.

However, within the vernacular of drugs and the music scene, Nick Mason, and the two main writers, David Gilmour and Roger Waters were not known substance abusers.

Think Hendrix, Morrison, Ozzie Osborne, Janice Joplin, Sid Vicious, Courtney Love, Jerry Garcia, Scott Weiland, Slash, David Crosby, The Rolling Stones, Guns n Roses, all bands/performers I like, as better choices . Heroine is a biotch. Eric Clapton, Lou Reed....

Even Prince and Michael Jackson are better examples of drugs in music.

Again, like your hockey reference in the post, just that Floyd was a weak example of drugs in the music scene....

Miles Davis, Stevie Nicks, David Bowie...

And these are all just of the top of my head - the list is much longer.

 

[Tarantula]

Was part of the Hockey Action Series by A. James Rennie?

I remember reading them as a grade schooler. The story of an up and coming star, Brodie Something or Something Brodie, tried to make the NHL...

Haha, the school library had this series, I wound up reading all of them. Dave Brodie was the players name and on the last book he made the Blues for a late season run to the playoffs.
I still remember the Junior A rivals the Redford Aces.

 

[kaiser matias]

I read Brodeur's book, Brodeur: Beyond the Crease, back when it came out, and found it absolutely terrible. It was ghost-written by Damien Cox (who is credited as a co-author), which should be a clear enough warning sign, but there is more. The book was sold as a biography of Brodeur, which is what I was looking for, but it mainly covers the most recent season (2005-06), and only touches on a few earlier topics. It is also bad for having multiple obvious factual errors: the two worst were it got the location of the 1990 draft wrong (it's listed as GM Place in the book, which didn't open until 1995; the draft was held at BC Place), and the date of the Bertuzzi-Moore incident (I can't recall what day they said, but considering the book was written right around then, its pretty bad they messed that up). Just overall not at all worth reading.

 

[ICM1970]

How about Roy MacGregor's 1993 screed "Road Games"? I took a read through it back when it first came out and then years later (must have been at the local public library) and found on both occasions the arrogance and posturing in the book that very repulsive and basically insufferable.

 

[BruinDust]

Bump. Add Tales of a First-Round Nothing: My Life as an NHL Footnote by Terry Ryan.

Terry Ryan basically spends a few hundred pages trying to charm his old teammates by name-dropping, like, all of them. All the while simultaneously and retroactively convincing himself that his was a career not wasted. Because of like, the stories, man. His hockey fables were uninspiring and unintelligent. Nobody cares about your lame music tastes dude. Nobody cares about your ball hockey team. Nobody cares about your weak-ass high school crushes.

He might have the world record for least amount of NHL games played and still has a book written about his "career".

Heck, he played just over 300 pro games total. He's not even an pro hockey footnote, let alone an NHL one.

The title of his book should of been Tales of Nothing: My life as a failed pro hockey player.

 

[Johnny Engine]

He might have the world record for least amount of NHL games played and still has a book written about his "career".

Heck, he played just over 300 pro games total. He's not even an pro hockey footnote, let alone an NHL one.

The title of his book should of been Tales of Nothing: My life as a failed pro hockey player.

Terry's a little more noteworthy to the book's intended audience though - as a native Newfoundlander and the highest ever draft pick from that province, he's always going to be well-known to an area that has a huge appetite for pro hockey stories and comparatively few players who actually made it. He's also something of an extrovert in the media around here, and he's been seen publishing his own nightlife magazine, hosting charity events, and even at the centre of a weird news story where a garage impounded his car for a suspicious amount of time. Just that sort of guy.

 

[BadgerBruce]

.... Good Lord. Unaware that Foster fancied himself an author & speak of the Devil... was just discussing him here on another thread... his "List" of All Time Greats compiled in 1980. Marking, like a pedantic school teacher Howe, Morenz, Richard, Beliveau, Hull & Orr, Gretzky. Um.... Interesting. Not Cricket to be taking shots at an Icon, Sacred Cows so I'll leave it at that.

Foster’s works of fiction in nearly all cases attack professionalism in hockey, a position his father, W.A. Hewitt, held throughout the astonishing 58 consecutive years he occupied the Secretary position on the board of the OHA.

Given that both men owed their livelihoods to professional hockey, the hypocrisy is really quite eye-rolling.

W.A. left his job with the Toronto Star to become the first attractions manager of Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931 and we know all about Foster’s broadcast career and how he parlayed this into various ownership stakes in media enterprises. In fact, CKFH started in 1950 and Foster owned it — the studio was on Grenville, just around the corner from the Gardens. How convenient. A big staple of the station was reconstructed Leafs’ and Brooklyn Dodgers games. Doesn’t get more professional than this.

Anyway, the Hewitts espoused views that did not jibe with their actions. Foster’s fictional works for teenagers have his father’s “Amateurism for Real Gentlemen” philosophy everywhere. Can’t personally stand them, but as you say ...... icons, sacred cows, etc.

 

[Killion]

Foster’s works of fiction in nearly all cases attack professionalism in hockey, a position his father, W.A. Hewitt, held throughout the astonishing 58 consecutive years he occupied the Secretary position on the board of the OHA.

Given that both men owed their livelihoods to professional hockey, the hypocrisy is really quite eye-rolling.

W.A. left his job with the Toronto Star to become the first attractions manager of Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931 and we know all about Foster’s broadcast career and how he parlayed this into various ownership stakes in media enterprises. In fact, CKFH started in 1950 and Foster owned it — the studio was on Grenville, just around the corner from the Gardens. How convenient. A big staple of the station was reconstructed Leafs’ and Brooklyn Dodgers games. Doesn’t get more professional than this.

Anyway, the Hewitts espoused views that did not jibe with their actions. Foster’s fictional works for teenagers have his father’s “Amateurism for Real Gentlemen” philosophy everywhere. Can’t personally stand them, but as you say ...... icons, sacred cows, etc.

Fascinating bit of history Badger, something I'm not so sure a great many are aware of. Foster very much a Man of an Earlier Age, his fathers son, the late Victorian-Edwardian Age. Of Empire. Gentleman Sportsman. Professionalism a dirty thing when it came to sports. How his father, how he reconciled all of that also speaks to the times, Depression, they had to be pragmatic, food, mortgage etc. So yes, not uncommon for that type to plug their noses while rolling up their sleeves... Church every Sunday, to privately live by the Golden Rules while railing against the decadence of society, conscience clear. Puritan, goody two-shoes. And your absolutely correct; beyond hypocritical. That was Toronto the Good. By-Laws forbidding the Leafs (including the TML baseball club); any professional sports event being staged on a Sunday & so on. Alcohol considered a major Evil. Wasnt until 1969 or so that you could go into a LCBO (government controlled retailer) & buy a bottle off the shelf. Until then all kinds of paperwork to fill out, only permitted restricted quantities & varieties etc.

 

[SealsFan]

Just about anything ever written by Stan Fischler.

I was going to say this if no one else did, but you got it in the first post!

 

[connormcmuffin]

"Fire on Ice" by Eric Lindros. He wrote it in the fall of 1991, before he had ever played a game in the NHL. Self-serving, and short in content.

First book I ever read cover to cover

Still remember him sitting alone with a knife when with host family because he was scared of crime

 

[SealsFan]

Bump. Add Tales of a First-Round Nothing: My Life as an NHL Footnote by Terry Ryan.

Terry Ryan basically spends a few hundred pages trying to charm his old teammates by name-dropping, like, all of them. All the while simultaneously and retroactively convincing himself that his was a career not wasted. Because of like, the stories, man. His hockey fables were uninspiring and unintelligent. Nobody cares about your lame music tastes dude. Nobody cares about your ball hockey team. Nobody cares about your weak-ass high school crushes.

Wow, this is actually a book? I hope you rented it from the library instead of paying for it...

 

[HollaHaula]

Old clips from the late sixties and early seventies (Think Live At Pompeii) show they certainly used cannibals at that time.

Oh dear. I think Pink Floyd had a bigger problem than drugs.

 

[justafan22]

https://www.amazon.ca/Why-Leafs-Suck-They-Fixed/dp/155468546X

It has good insight, but Strachan is a hack.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Oh dear. I think Pink Floyd had a bigger problem than drugs.

Yes, the cannibal use was what really put PF on their own level.

 

[JMCx4]

Several good (or bad) nominees here. From the OP, Dave Hanson's Slap Shot Original certainly ranks near the bottom of my hockey reading list. But Terry Ryan's First Round Nothing was far worse. Kerry Fraser's Final Call made me despise the man even more than I did before I picked up the book. Damien Cox's Brodeur book was good for one thing only: Inducing sleep. I've tried hard to enjoy Roy MacGregor's hockey stories, both fiction & non-fiction, but he repeats himself way too much and drags out his premises to the breaking point (sometimes beyond).

Adding several of my own, to save others time & money ...

• Randi Druzin's Between the Pipes: A Revealing Look at Hockey's Legendary Goalies revealed nothing, but it taught me to never pick up (or certainly purchase) another Randi Druzin book.
• GOON: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey by former "goon" Doug Smith and Adam Frattasio was clearly an attempt - and a disaster - at capitalizing on the romance of fighting in hockey.
• Mark Howe's Gordie Howe's Son: A Hall of Fame Life in the Shadow of Mr. Hockey was truly underwhelming in its attempt to make its readers sympathize with the author's misfortune of having Gordie as a Dad.
• Hockey Superstitions: From Playoff Beards to Crossed Sticks and Lucky Socks by Andrew Podnieks was quite simply a waste of ink & paper.
• Sean Pronger's Journeyman – The Many Triumphs (and even more numerous defeats) Of A Guy Who’s Seen Just About Everything In The Game Of Hockey proved to me that hockey AND literary skills can only stretch so far in a family tree.
  
• With Michael McKinley's Putting A Roof On Winter being at the top of my hockey reading favorites list, I was sorely disappointed by his writing efforts with Ice Time: The Story of Hockey. Maybe something got lost in the translation.
  
• Brian Patafie's Ice It Down: A Look at Pro Hockey Through A Trainer's Eyes was one of those self-aggrandizing pieces of ... literature ... that I enjoy least (see Terry Ryan's & Kerry Fraser's autobiographies).
• Ditto Stellicktricity: Stories, Highlights, and Other Hockey Juice from a Life Plugged into the Game by Gord Stellick.
  
• Killer, The Brian Kilrea Story – A Life In Hockey was a real stinker. But I'm not sure whether to blame the subject matter, the person telling their life story, or James Davidson who was credited with transcribing it all.
  
• George Plimpton's Open Net: A Professional Amateur in the World of Big-Time Hockey ... George should've stuck with pretending to play football & baseball.
• The Memorial Cup: Canada's National Junior Hockey Championship ... decades of cut 'n' paste game recaps with poorly written attempts to personalize the participants and their eras. FOOTNOTE: My daughter gave me this book for Christmas many years ago, and wrote a snarky note in the front with a prediction that her loving father would be leaving the copy behind somewhere while on a business trip. Sure enough, it stayed in an airplane seat back pocket when I changed seats mid-flight before I finished the last few boring chapters. I swear that wasn't on purpose.

 

[Doctor No]

George Plimpton's Open Net: A Professional Amateur in the World of Big-Time Hockey ... George should've stuck with pretending to play football & baseball.

Str0ng disagree on this one. I really liked the behind-the-scenes look at the Bruins atmosphere.

Although might I recommend "They Don't Play Hockey in Heaven" by Ken Baker? Fantastic book of a similar type.

 

[Doctor No]

"Journeyman" and the Druzin book were challenging reads.

 

[JMCx4]

Str0ng disagree on this one. I really liked the behind-the-scenes look at the Bruins atmosphere.

Although might I recommend "They Don't Play Hockey in Heaven" by Ken Baker? Fantastic book of a similar type.

Ken Baker's story I enjoyed very much; his writing didn't seem forced and it provoked serious empathy. Plimpton's Open Net was one of his earliest titles, and it showed in his writing. By the time he got to Paper Lion, he was an accomplished author AND more experienced in establishing a comfortable relationship with his subject matter.

 

[Doctor No]

I do agree that Plimpton's writing got more polished and interesting as he matured as a storyteller, although Paper Lion (1966) came long before Open Net (1985).

Having Hawkeye Pierce in the movie adaptation didn't hurt, either.

 

[njdevils1982]

I read Brodeur's book, Brodeur: Beyond the Crease, back when it came out, and found it absolutely terrible. It was ghost-written by Damien Cox (who is credited as a co-author), which should be a clear enough warning sign, but there is more. The book was sold as a biography of Brodeur, which is what I was looking for, but it mainly covers the most recent season (2005-06), and only touches on a few earlier topics. It is also bad for having multiple obvious factual errors: the two worst were it got the location of the 1990 draft wrong (it's listed as GM Place in the book, which didn't open until 1995; the draft was held at BC Place), and the date of the Bertuzzi-Moore incident (I can't recall what day they said, but considering the book was written right around then, its pretty bad they messed that up). Just overall not at all worth reading.

read the whole thing in the passenger seat on a road trip from toronto to jersey

what a piece of garbage.

shame

 

[Howie Hodge]

Oh dear. I think Pink Floyd had a bigger problem than drugs.

What problem did they have? Being immensely successful? Waters, Gilmour, and Mason are all alive and well. and very wealthy.

We should all have such problems.

 

[JMCx4]

I do agree that Plimpton's writing got more polished and interesting as he matured as a storyteller, although Paper Lion (1966) came long before Open Net (1985). ...

I must've had his on-line bio sorted in reverse order. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Rexor]

Hah, people are mentioning Fire on Ice by Eric Lindros. I found it online around 2000 and it was the first book written in English that I ever read. I liked it back then but yes, it was rather self-serving and cocky in a way. Some of the stuff was a bit banal I guess. He's even bragging about beating up a third grader when he himself was in a kindergarten. Or about being the best cross-country skier at school. But it also shows the incredible hype around Lindros as a prospect. It also shows how times are changing. I cannot imagine McDavid publishing an autobiography before playing a single NHL game. Though it's true that with the internet, there are more ways one can get to know about players. In 1990, it was only printed media, radio and a few TV channels.

 

[sharkhawk]

Two books by the same "author" come to mind, bought through a scholastic book club when I didn't shave yet:
Hockey Stars of 1975, and Hockey Stars of 1976, both written by Stan Fischler. The colour photo on the cover of the 76 one features Claire Alexander and Dave Schultz.

I cannot toss them however, even at the 40 yr mark due to some of the cool BW photos each book has. Only reason to keep those ones.

I used to love those books. Probably got everyone from 71 to 78. They used to let us order the books in school.