More Bad Boys

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Fischler’s third book about hockey’s “toughest, meanest players”
features interviews with 20 National Hockey League tough guys.

The first section of the book focuses on three “Tough Guys with
Skill”: Brendan Shanahan, Claude Lemieux, and Scott Mellanby. Section
2, “Blue Line Bombers,” targets 10 defencemen. Section 3, “The
Lunch Pail Gang,” highlights seven players whose continued presence in
professional hockey can be attributed both to their strong work ethic
and to their willingness to play physical hockey. Each player’s entry
varies from four to 10 pages in length (though, inexplicably, Nick
Kypreos’s interview balloons to 17 pages). Fischler, though credited
as the author, conducted only one of the interviews, with the rest being
carried out by various reporters in several cities. Thirteen of these
interviews are presented in a question-and-answer format; the remaining
seven are written as first-person narratives. Inserted in the book’s
middle is a 10-page section of black-and-white game-action photos.

The book’s final section, “Golden Oldies,” was principally
written by Mark Topaz, the Aggressive Hockey Report’s publisher and
editor. Its five short pieces describe some of hockey’s tougher teams,
such as the “Broad Street Bullies” of the 1970s and the 1977
Birmingham Bulls.

Although More Bad Boys provides readers with modest insights into
hockey’s tough guys and some information about their careers
(especially the routes they took to the NHL), readers will find that the
game’s enforcers tend to duck the tough questions, becoming
excessively modest about their own combative prowess and resorting to
nonanswers laced with sports clichés. Understandably, players in the
“Golden Oldies” section, who no longer have to worry about being
called upon to back up their answers on the ice, are much more candid.
Libraries owning Bad Boys and Bad Boys 2 will want to add the latest
instalment.