Elston on Ice

Dave Jenkinson is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba.

Elston—employed by the Calgary Sun as Canada’s only full-time sports
cartoonist—has compiled 125 of his hockey cartoons, which have
appeared in recent years in the Edmonton Sun, The Hockey News, Inside
Hockey, and, naturally, the Calgary Sun. All but one of the cartoons are
humorous, the single serious exception being Elston’s tribute to the
memory of the Philadelphia Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh. The
one-per-page cartoons are divided into five groupings. The opening
section, “Nightmares,” focuses on the “horrors” that could
befall players or game officials and includes such gems as Nightmare
#143: “While skating past Dave Brown, your gloves accidentally fall
off.” Next, “1989–90 Regular Season” takes light-hearted pokes
at a variety of teams and players, and “1990 Playoffs” humorously
follows the Stanley Cup series from L.A.’s victory over the Flames to
Edmonton’s ultimate triumph. “Tough Guys” zeroes in on some of the
league’s bad guys; “Gretzky” pokes fun at “The Great One.”
“As the League Turns,” approximately one-third of the book’s
length, is a potpourri of hockey humor that includes some funny shots at
Theoren Fleury’s size and Don Cherry’s attire. Readers can enjoy
much of the book’s humor without being serious hockey fans, but
because many of the collection’s cartoons (for example, the one
dealing with the restaurant fight between the then Leafs John Kordic and
Allan Bester) are quite event-specific, their humorous impact may be
somewhat reduced without this prior knowledge. Nevertheless, Elston on
Ice provides many chuckles and belly laughs and should find its way into
high-school and public libraries.