After being wooed by various publishers for years, veteran sports play-by-play broadcaster Jim Robson, at 69, agreed to allow Jason Farris, a 38-year-old software businessman, to compile his memorabilia for Hockey Play-by-Play: Around the NHL with Jim Robson ($99; $44.95), a scrapbook-styled coffee table book. A member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, the much-loved Robson, known for his "message to hospital patients and shut-ins" and other people who couldn't get out to the games, retired from radio in 1999 and last called a hockey game on CKNW radio when the Vancouver Canucks lost game seven to the New York Islanders in the 1994 Stanley Cup final series. Although he was the voice of the Vancouver Canucks for 25 years, long-time British Columbians fondly remember Jim Robson as the voice of the Vancouver Mounties baseball team in the Pacific Coast League. Robson lives in Kitsilano with a summer home on Galiano Island. "The business has changed quite a bit," Robson told Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun. "It's entertainment now and I was never an entertainer... I think the kids today would find [my broadcasts] dull."

Jason Farris' follow-up project is Hockey Play-by-Play: Canuck Captains with Jim Robson ($16.95), a 32-page program-style book that features memorabilia and recollections from Hockey Hall of Fame broadcaster Jim Robson and the next 'voice of the Canucks', John Shorthouse. In commemoration of the Canucks' 40-year anniversary, this publication chronicles and celebrates the first ten captains who have led the NHL's Vancouver Canucks, from Orland Kurtenbach to Roberto Luongo. The book recalls ten great games, with examples of Jim's and John's hand-written game notes and hockey memorabilia. Canuck captains like Trevor Linden, Stan Smyl and Don Lever recall memorable nights wearing the 'C' and what it takes to be a captain in the NHL. The book is available for purchase via the author's website. 978-0-9739016-3-4

As Brad Pitt's recent movie Moneyball makes clear, general managers of sports franchises are as much responsible for victory or defeat as players and coaches. In 84 years of NHL history, only 32 general managers have won the Stanley Cup as a GM. "I believe that the NHL's general managers have been the brains and the conscience of the game since the league opened for business in 1917," says Brian Burke, who won the cup with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007. Jason Farris reportedly took 18 months and 60,000 kms of travelling to create Behind the Moves: NHL General Managers Tell How Winners Are Built ($99.95), a 252-page coffee table book based on his in-person interviews with every living NHL GM who has taken a team to the Stanley Cup final. Collectively these 35 GMs represent over 500 seasons of GM experience. It is touted as part history book, part encyclopedia and part manual for would-be managers.

BOOKS:

Hockey Play-by-Play: Around the NHL with Jim Robson (Vancouver: 2005, $44.95).

Hail Cesare: Trail through the NHL by Jason Farris (Vancouver: 2007, $44.95)

Hockey Play-by-Play: Canuck Captains with Jim Robson (Vancouver: 2010) $16.95 978-0-9739016-3-4

Behind the Moves: NHL General Managers Tell How Winners Are Built (Vancouver: 2012, $99.95)

[BCBW 2012] "Sports" "Journalism"

[Robson Hockey Book, 1437 Kings Avenue, West Vancouver, BC V7T 2C7]