Taking the Ice: The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim

Lisa Arsenault is an elementary-school teacher in Ajax, Ontario.

If you want to know how a hockey team came by the unusual name of
“Mighty Ducks,” this is the book. Disney owns the team and
apparently wanted a name that was “between Disneyesque and hockey
mean.” The logo was an instant success: people started buying jerseys
and caps even before there was a coach and players. Through the draft
process a team was assembled, and after a rocky start the Ducks began to
win games. Chadwin describes the team strategy on the ice but
concentrates on individual players. He also emphasizes that though there
are language and cultural differences among the players (since they come
from all over the world), they are, nonetheless, united by their spirit
and love of hockey.

The author has a nice writing style—he speaks directly to the reader
as if engaged in a two-way conversation. He logically assumes that most
of his readers are hockey fans and/or players, and relates to them on
that level, querying the reader’s favorite players, exhorting one of
them not to give up but to keep on practising when he’s having trouble
with his game, and so on. In that vein he also describes at some length
a Mighty Duck who got to play only because of injuries to players on the
regular roster and made two assists during his first game and a week
later scored his first goal.

This interesting and informative book for the hockey aficionados is
highly recommended.