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The Lonely End of the Rink: Confessions of a Reluctant Goalie
Fans of Grant Lawrence's first book, Adventures in Solitude or his alt-rock band, The Smugglers, will enjoy his trademark blend of humour and hyperbole in The Lonely End of the Rink: Confessions of a Reluctant Goalie by Grant Lawrence (D&M $26.95). But it's also an honest, introspective look at childhood bullying and the scars left unhealed in adulthood as well as the grip that hockey has on our national psyche and our sometimes appalling behaviour as fans. The upside is an insider's account of the Exclaim! Hockey Summit of the Arts, wherein a national gathering of artistically inclined individuals (Sam Roberts Band, Sloan, the Rheostatics, Sean Cullen, Patti Schmidt, the Sadies and others) meet in team uniforms to play hockey and music and to party in "a frozen nirvana.";
Chapters devoted to the author's undersized childhood, cursed with glasses in Grade 2 and a bizarre condition wherein his knee-caps painfully dislocate without warning, set readers up for a decidedly non-athletic path. Lawrence gravitated to the nerds in the school library but watching the Vancouver Canucks with his Dad ignited the fan fuse. The well-designed book is illustrated with photos, quirky line drawings and pearls of wisdom from great goalies, (cleverly structured in First, Second and Third Period eras and Overtime.)
Some volatile goalies featured in Between the Pipes might have benefited from reading this thoughtful book, seasoned with the tears of a clown.
978-1771000772
***
In Between the Pipes: A Revealing Look At Hockey's Legendary Goalies by Randi Druzin (Greystone Books $19.95), veteran sports writer Randi Druzin showcases twelve outstanding NHL goalies, with a foreword by eminence grise, Roy MacGregor, who writes:
"This is a storyteller's book, and as such it is also a reader's book. You don't have to be a goaltender to enjoy it; you just have to be a reader who loves words, loves sports and appreciates the sorts of insights that will never be found in 140 characters or less.";
Good hockey writing manages to synthesize and emulate the adrenalin and energy of the game, the tragedy of career-ending injuries and the comedy of wags like Gump Worsley and Bernie Parent.
Druzin gives us gems like: "The butterflies in his stomach became pterodactyls"; and "(the defenceman) was patrolling the blue line with the diligence of an East German border guard.";
And "...the team was as vigorous as a small dead animal. Squeamish spectators looked away.";
Readers will appreciate that goalies suffer extensive physical damage from pucks fired at 100 mph or more, the honed, knife-edges of skates and dog-piles of huge, angry men in the crease. Then there is the mental and emotional stress of carrying much of the game's outcome on their shoulders.
Druzin presents her iconic goalies with a key personality trait or role within the team.. For example, Terry Sawchuk the Tortured Soul came to hockey from working class Winnipeg where he and his pals used a "prairie puck"; aka frozen horse dung. He was a cranky chain smoker who lived with chronic pain. His life story is a tragedy, from his sad childhood to his alcohol-fuelled death at age forty, except for his records which lasted for decades and a posthumous Canadian stamp-plus Winnipeg's Terry Sawchuk Memorial Arena.
Lorne "Gump"; Worsley may have said it best when asked about Terry Sawchuk: "He was one of the great ones, but a strange man... He drove his own team-mates nuts too ... maybe that's the mark of a good goal tender. We're not well, you know, or we wouldn't be playing the position.";
Glenn Hall the Trooper was famous for barfing into a bucket before every game, the Lawrence Olivier of net-minders, and for his butterfly style. By the 1962 season, he'd played 502 consecutive regular games, a record unbroken to this day.
Jacques Plante the Maverick enhanced the goalie reputation for eccentricity by knitting his own toques and cooking for the fun of it. Born in 1929, Plante suffered from debilitating asthma. After experiencing the usual broken nose and cheekbones, hundreds of facial stitches and concussions, the maverick created his own face mask for training camp and defiantly wore it to a game in 1959, changing the face of goal-tending forever.
Gump Worsley the Joker handled media questions with aplomb despite dropping out of school at age fourteen to work. While Plante was a string bean, Worsley was somewhat potato-shaped, with a brush-cut and lightning fast reflexes. He went to a therapist every day for a month to control his fear of flying and baked pineapple squares christened "gumpies"; by appreciative team-mates.
Johnny Bower the Gentleman began his career in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, wearing goalie pads made from an old mattress and a stick his Dad carved from a branch. He may be the only NHL player to have recorded a best-selling record in 1967, over 40,000 copies of Honky the Christmas Goose. He played with rheumatoid arthritis and a positive attitude, the kind of goalie who checked on anyone who crashed behind his net to make sure they were okay.
Bernie Parent the Bon Vivant was an extrovert, the toast of Philadelphia, where he anchored the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup. His game day ritual was a 16 ounce steak, exactly ten mushrooms, a nap with his dog Tinker Bell and then a video of The Three Stooges. He wrote a self-help book in 2011, Journey Through Risk and Fear after a freak eye accident prematurely ended his career and he had successfully battled alcohol and depression.
Ken Dryden the Scholar forged successful careers as a star goalie, author of The Game, and as a lawyer, politician and businessman. He possibly earned his sober moniker by working with Ralph Nader on a water pollution project after winning his first Stanley Cup in 1972, instead of golfing.
Others included are Ron Hextall the Warrior, Patrick Roy the Cock of the Walk, Ed Belfour the Fanatic, Dominick Hasek the Enigma and Martin Brodeur the Cool Customer.
978-1771000147
***
Caroline Woodward will no longer attempt the butterfly but remains a Canucks fan, an equally painful position some days.
[BCBW 2014]
Chapters devoted to the author's undersized childhood, cursed with glasses in Grade 2 and a bizarre condition wherein his knee-caps painfully dislocate without warning, set readers up for a decidedly non-athletic path. Lawrence gravitated to the nerds in the school library but watching the Vancouver Canucks with his Dad ignited the fan fuse. The well-designed book is illustrated with photos, quirky line drawings and pearls of wisdom from great goalies, (cleverly structured in First, Second and Third Period eras and Overtime.)
Some volatile goalies featured in Between the Pipes might have benefited from reading this thoughtful book, seasoned with the tears of a clown.
978-1771000772
***
In Between the Pipes: A Revealing Look At Hockey's Legendary Goalies by Randi Druzin (Greystone Books $19.95), veteran sports writer Randi Druzin showcases twelve outstanding NHL goalies, with a foreword by eminence grise, Roy MacGregor, who writes:
"This is a storyteller's book, and as such it is also a reader's book. You don't have to be a goaltender to enjoy it; you just have to be a reader who loves words, loves sports and appreciates the sorts of insights that will never be found in 140 characters or less.";
Good hockey writing manages to synthesize and emulate the adrenalin and energy of the game, the tragedy of career-ending injuries and the comedy of wags like Gump Worsley and Bernie Parent.
Druzin gives us gems like: "The butterflies in his stomach became pterodactyls"; and "(the defenceman) was patrolling the blue line with the diligence of an East German border guard.";
And "...the team was as vigorous as a small dead animal. Squeamish spectators looked away.";
Readers will appreciate that goalies suffer extensive physical damage from pucks fired at 100 mph or more, the honed, knife-edges of skates and dog-piles of huge, angry men in the crease. Then there is the mental and emotional stress of carrying much of the game's outcome on their shoulders.
Druzin presents her iconic goalies with a key personality trait or role within the team.. For example, Terry Sawchuk the Tortured Soul came to hockey from working class Winnipeg where he and his pals used a "prairie puck"; aka frozen horse dung. He was a cranky chain smoker who lived with chronic pain. His life story is a tragedy, from his sad childhood to his alcohol-fuelled death at age forty, except for his records which lasted for decades and a posthumous Canadian stamp-plus Winnipeg's Terry Sawchuk Memorial Arena.
Lorne "Gump"; Worsley may have said it best when asked about Terry Sawchuk: "He was one of the great ones, but a strange man... He drove his own team-mates nuts too ... maybe that's the mark of a good goal tender. We're not well, you know, or we wouldn't be playing the position.";
Glenn Hall the Trooper was famous for barfing into a bucket before every game, the Lawrence Olivier of net-minders, and for his butterfly style. By the 1962 season, he'd played 502 consecutive regular games, a record unbroken to this day.
Jacques Plante the Maverick enhanced the goalie reputation for eccentricity by knitting his own toques and cooking for the fun of it. Born in 1929, Plante suffered from debilitating asthma. After experiencing the usual broken nose and cheekbones, hundreds of facial stitches and concussions, the maverick created his own face mask for training camp and defiantly wore it to a game in 1959, changing the face of goal-tending forever.
Gump Worsley the Joker handled media questions with aplomb despite dropping out of school at age fourteen to work. While Plante was a string bean, Worsley was somewhat potato-shaped, with a brush-cut and lightning fast reflexes. He went to a therapist every day for a month to control his fear of flying and baked pineapple squares christened "gumpies"; by appreciative team-mates.
Johnny Bower the Gentleman began his career in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, wearing goalie pads made from an old mattress and a stick his Dad carved from a branch. He may be the only NHL player to have recorded a best-selling record in 1967, over 40,000 copies of Honky the Christmas Goose. He played with rheumatoid arthritis and a positive attitude, the kind of goalie who checked on anyone who crashed behind his net to make sure they were okay.
Bernie Parent the Bon Vivant was an extrovert, the toast of Philadelphia, where he anchored the first expansion team to win the Stanley Cup. His game day ritual was a 16 ounce steak, exactly ten mushrooms, a nap with his dog Tinker Bell and then a video of The Three Stooges. He wrote a self-help book in 2011, Journey Through Risk and Fear after a freak eye accident prematurely ended his career and he had successfully battled alcohol and depression.
Ken Dryden the Scholar forged successful careers as a star goalie, author of The Game, and as a lawyer, politician and businessman. He possibly earned his sober moniker by working with Ralph Nader on a water pollution project after winning his first Stanley Cup in 1972, instead of golfing.
Others included are Ron Hextall the Warrior, Patrick Roy the Cock of the Walk, Ed Belfour the Fanatic, Dominick Hasek the Enigma and Martin Brodeur the Cool Customer.
978-1771000147
***
Caroline Woodward will no longer attempt the butterfly but remains a Canucks fan, an equally painful position some days.
[BCBW 2014]
Submitted on February 11, 2014 in By David.
