Top Rookies: Hockey Superstars

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.

Duplacey’s third book in the Hockey Superstars series joins 1000 Point
Players and Great Goalies in celebrating National Hockey League
achievements. Duplacey, a former Hockey Hall of Fame curator, has
selected 40 past and present players who had noteworthy first seasons.
Although many of the top rookies were winners of the Frank Calder
Memorial Trophy, which is awarded to the NHL’s rookie-of-the-year,
others were remarkable in different ways. A section entitled
“High-School Heroes” identifies four players who stepped directly
from high-school hockey into the NHL, while “Against the Odds”
features a quartet of rookies who, despite the prognostications of the
“experts,” enjoyed outstanding initial seasons. For each player, in
addition to one or more action color photos and a defining quote by or
about him, Duplacey provides rookie season statistics and a brief
laudatory text. Like the earlier titles in this series, Top Rookies will
find a readership among middle schoolers seeking unndemanding hockey
fare. Recommended.