Chasing the Dream: A Player's Guide

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.

The “dream” of every red-blooded Canadian boy is to some day play
professional hockey in the National Hockey League. McPhee, herself a
lawyer and obviously not a present or former NHLer, upholds the idea of
the dream but at the same time offers young readers and their parents a
useful dose of reality and information. For McPhee, “there are only a
few routes into the NHL and the fastest route is the Canadian Hockey
League (CHL).” The book’s 17 chapters serve as a primer to the CHL,
a sort of “everything you need to know” about making and staying in
one of the CHL’s three leagues: the Quebec Major Junior (QMJHL),
Ontario (OHL), and Western Hockey League (WHL).

McPhee examines such topics as education, agents, training and
conditioning, injuries, coaches, and scouts. She asks her readers to
look past the glamour and to consider the harsh realities of making the
team, going on road trips, living away from home, and being traded, and
the possibility of ultimately not catching the dream. The real-life
experiences of players, coaches, and others connected with the CHL are
used to illustrate the author’s points. Her book includes
black-and-white photos of the players and a closing section that
profiles, by league, each of the CHL’s 53 teams, with information on
the team’s history, rink size, NHL “graduates,” and the city in
which the team is located.

Notwithstanding the book’s subtitle, parents of would-be NHLers would
also be well advised to read Chasing the Dream. Highly recommended for
school and public libraries.