The temptation might be turn the page on this year and get to 2025 ASAP.
But do take some holiday time to read a lineup of excellent hockey books.
Postmedia’s annual Christmas gift suggestions once more covers the boards, the boardroom, history, humour, stats and riveting stories on everything that makes our favourite sport so compelling.
The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams
Craig Custance
Simon and Schuster, 269 pages, $36.99
If you’ve ever ruminated at the bar or the rink where this or that NHL team got it right or wrong, Custance’s candid conversations with general managers puts you in the executive hot seat.
Learn what drives the decision-makers on personal and professional levels; Jim Rutherford making everyone feel part of back-to-back Cups in Pittsburgh, his latest challenge in Vancouver, how Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and George McPhee got so close to a joint Cup; why McPhee wasn’t around when they finally won it, but used his experience to make expansion Vegas a champion within a few years.
Leafs fans glimpse what made Kyle Dubas tick and how Brad Treliving adapted to what he inherited. There also is the impact of a new demographic, key roles in management and scouting that many women have begun to play.
Iron Mike: My Life Behind the Bench
Mike Keenan with Scott Morrison
Random House Canada, 313 pages, $36.00
Keenan starts this rollicking tome with “I really am a bastard” and ends by admitting “I had to learn to enjoy winning. (It) requires abnormal behaviour.”
The passage of time and overcoming health issues have put Keenan in a good place to re-trace an incredible road map from his youth and playing days to coaching junior, college and sometimes GMing eight NHL teams, with a Stanley Cup, a Canada Cup and overseas adventures to Italy and Russia.
Some players — OK, many — loathed him, but proven winners such as Mark Messier beg to differ.
Keenan began this project with my former Sun colleague, the late, great Jay Greenberg, and our mutual boss Morrison saw it through.
Home And Away
Mats Sundin with Amy Stuart
Simon and Schuster, 308 pages, $39.99
The most prolific scorer of Leafs captains might also be the most misunderstood.
Part of that was Sundin’s preference not to rock the boat in Toronto, keep calm and carry on, lead by example. Many of today’s Leafs could note his daily accountability to media and fans through 13 seasons, but he rarely, if ever, called out teammates publicly or behind the scenes.
He explains a lot of that reticence here and why he wanted to stay on a seemingly dead-end Leafs team late in his career. This is his life in the eye of the storm as a Swedish star in junior, national team and in two other major Canadian markets, Quebec and Vancouver.
Jack and the Box: My Search for Stanley Cup Champion Jack McLean
Kevin Shea
Self-published, 203 pages, $30.00
It has been a while since we heard a good story about a Leaf and his Stanley Cup ring.
Shea recounts his very personal journey, first to find the missing member of the 1945 Toronto champions after coming across clips of McLean in his late father’s memory box, then see McLean get proper recognition.
Shea uncovers more than he imagined along the trail and through his day job as researcher at the Hockey Hall of Fame, puts McLean in the frame with many Depression-era and war-time players and managers.
The Maple Leaf Forever
Brian McFarlane
At Bay Press, 200 pages, $26.95
In two years, it’ll be the centennial of the Leafs and, while it seems McFarlane has been there every step of the way, the 93-year-old ‘godfather’ of 100-plus hockey books saved some tales for this, with never-before-seen team snaps from private collectors.
We now stretch pass to Todd Denault and our friends at the Society for International Hockey Research for five critics’ choice selections, diligent authors whose works might not get deserved exposure:
Hockey Priest: Father David Bauer and the Spirit of the Canadian Game
Dr. Matt Hoven
Catholic University of America Press, 324 pages, $38.95
An associate professor of sports and religion at the University of Alberta, Hoven conveys the life of the game-changing priest who created our first national team, who believed “that in a small way, hockey can improve the world,” to consider its values and meanings and have Canadians do likewise.
Hoven interviewed the Bauer family and sorted through archives of the Basilian Fathers order to better grasp Bauer’s motivations. Bauer-isms included “use technique, but let the spirit prevail”, countering a scientific mindset in the sport and the NHL powerbrokers’ urge to alter his national team ideals. Bauer eventually helped the league secure international play through Hockey Canada, remaining influential until his death in 1988.
“He’s a nationalist,” Hoven said. “I tried to not make him a saint or a do-gooder, but someone driven to make hockey better for Canadians.”
Five Overtimes: Habs and Leafs in the 1951 Stanley Cup final
John G. Robertson and Carl T. Madden
McFarland & Company, 223 pages, $56.19
Call it the quintuple bypass final for players and fans. The NHL’s oldest rivals fought to extra time all five games in a 10-day ride.
Seventy-plus years have passed, but this generation of Leafs supporters reveled in their sixth title in nine years, though mourned the loss of Game 5 hero, Bill Barilko.
“All the elements of a great story,” Denault said. “This takes an in-depth look at the 210-game regular season, its exciting conclusion and two playoff semi-final series and features many amusing anecdotes.”
There’s a bonus chapter on the strange circumstances of Barilko’s disappearance on a float plane fishing trip, a search that took 11 years.
Undermanned But Undaunted: The Frank Boucher Era of the New York Rangers 1940-1955
George Grimm
Self-published, 409 pages, $34.36
Why did the Rangers have to wait a once-record 54 years between Cups?
They should have been set up the flagship American franchise, but the 1940 championship was a one-hit wonder on Broadway. No team would feel the effects of World War II more than the Rangers in this oft-forgotten era in team history that Grimm fills in.
Hapless Islanders: Behind New York’s Infamous 1972-73 Season
Greg Prato
Self-published, 242 pages,$20.85
“There’s something about first-year teams that makes fascinating fodder for hockey books and Prato adds the trials and tribulations of the ‘72-73 Isles to the pile,” Denault said.
Surviving members of the team re-live the expansion process and a doormat season, but the silver lining – literally – was three years later, being Cup contenders and winning it in 1980 to launch a dynasty.
Prato adds archival material, studies the rough n’ ready NHL style of the day, amid the cultural backdrop of Long Island in the early ‘70s.
Boston Bruins Origins
Jeff Miclash
Self published, 284 pages, $45.00
Miclash is becoming as prolific as Brad Marchand, with four Bruins books in three years.
Here, he turns the Causeway St. clock back to the team’s founding in 1924 (they just beat the Habs on their exact 100th anniversary) and the B’s first five NHL years, including their 1929 Cup.
Greatest Hockey Trades Of All Time
Joe Pelletier
Self-published, 209 pages, $24.99
Pelletier, a long time B.C.-based history buff and blogger, explores the origins of the hockey trade, elements of which are unique in pro sports. He also looks into several small deals that wound up having huge consequences.
Deal With It: Trades That Shook Hockey and How They Changed the Game
Bruce and Evan Dowbiggin
Self-published, 229 pages, $24.95
The Dowbiggins, a father-and-son team, bring old and new perspectives to the big swaps, specifics of late-season moves and their impact on winning a Cup. They speak to players such as Alan May, who was traded four times at the deadline.
Hockey Hall Of Fame True Stories
Eric Zweig
Firefly, 203 pages, $29.99
The season’s ideal coffee table book is the latest from the long Zweig line. Hours of combing newspaper and magazine articles pay off, not repeating well-worn Hall member heroics, but finding endearing and entertaining moments, such as oddball injuries.
We particularly enjoyed ‘Media Moments’ — how hockey game night programs evolved and how telegraphed play-by-play was the forerunner of radio coverage and TV’s Hockey Night in Canada.
Never Boring: The Up and Down History of the Vancouver Canucks
Ed Willes
Harbour Publishing, 328 pages, $28.95
We’ve waited for our good friend Ed to follow up his rollicking Rebel League that delved into the World Hockey Association. The often-crazy times on the Left Coast are chronicled here.
Dreamer, My Life on the Edge
Nazem Kadri with Dan Robson
Viking, 240 pages, $36.00
Kadri is one of the NHL’s most polarizing players exactly because he has been an open book for much of his 34 years, a career that still endures.
He has more to offer here: Growing up as a hockey-playing Muslim in London, Ont., Leafs life at a turbulent time in their modern history, before his eventual reward with a Cup in Colorado. Robson has done bios with many former NHLers such as Pat Quinn and Doug Gilmour.
Habs 365
Mike Commito
Dundurn Press, 416 pages, $30.00
Sudbury resident Commito scored last year with a witty day-by-day look back with the Leafs and gives Montreal equal time and space.
Of couse, there are 24 Cup years, double that of the Leafs, to tap into, a good thing with content a little light on today’s version of Les Glorieux.
Hockey Rants and Raves
Steve ‘Dangle’ Glynn
HarperCollins Canada, 304 pages, $34.99
Veering off camera to the printed word might take an edge off Dangle as he tackles ’hockey’s biggest controversies and beefs’ in his second book, branching out from the Leafs to the NHL at large.
But this collection might also broaden his demographic of fans who love a historical debate without the histrionics from his podcasts and YouTube content.
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