WHEN LANNY McDONALD AND HIS mates beat Les Canadiens, Kootenay publisher Julian Ross was jubilant. "I was jumping up n' down, literally, screaming," he says, "I was so happy my 6-year-old son slugged me in the stomach! He had wanted the Canucks to win!"

Ross had gambled on the Calgary Flames doing well by signing a contract earlier in the season to produce Bob Mummery's Countdown to the Cup: An Illustrated History of the Calgary Flames (Polestar/Raincoast $19.95).

Then one of Canada's best-known publishing firms, McClelland & Stewart of Toronto, announced they were going to give Polestar Press of Winlaw, B.C. some competition with their own book, The Eternal Flames ($14.95).

Calgary Flames scored a second victory for the west when vice-president of business and finance, Clare Rhyasen, and Leo Ornest, vice-president of sales and broadcasting, decided not to support the book from eastern Canada.

"We hadn't jumped on the bandwagon," Ross explains, 'We had been working on our book in honour of their 10th anniversary."

This season Ross says the only book to be sold in the Saddledome will be the Polestar book. Similarily it will also be the only book to be sold by direct mail to season ticket holders. Head coach Terry Crisp and Rhyasen have appeared at a Calgary sales conference to endorse Ross' book.

"It was a bonus that the Flames won the Stanley Cup," he says, "But as with all sports books, if they hadn't done well it would have been a disaster. "Now I hope there's room on the market for both books. They're really quite different."

The McClelland & Stewart book by Flames' broadcaster Peter Maher and John Iaboni is largely text; Polestar's book features 155 colour photographs by one of hockey's foremost photographers, Bob Mummery.

Originally from West Vancouver, Ross published a book about the Calgary Flames three years ago. Two years ago he published Country on Ice, hockey essays by Victoria's Doug Beardsley. Last year he published Fuhr on Goaltending by Mummery and Edmonton netminder Grant Fuhr.

A self-described 'bad winger', Ross started playing hockey after his first son was born. Living in the Kootenays, halfway between Calgary and Vancouver, he says he remains a Vancouver Canucks fan at heart.

This fall Polestar Press is planning to publish The Vancouver Canucks: The First 20 Years (Raincoast $19.95) by Norm Jewison, with photos by Bill Cunningham, to be available in November. It could be an omen.

[BCBW Autumn 1989]