Here Come the Vees

Ian A. Andrews is editor of the New Brunswick Teachers’ Association’s Focus and co-author of Becoming a Teacher.

Minor league sports teams are not often the subjects of 288-page books,
especially when the history spans only 15 years in one location. Sports
writer Geoffrey Kent has chosen as his subject the Nova Scotia
Voyageurs—the American Hockey League farm team of the Montreal
Canadiens from 1969 to 1984— not primarily because they won so many
titles or broke attendance records, but because this franchise was so
successful in preparing players for the major leagues. The long list of
players who passed through the port city (Ken Dryden, “Bunny”
Laroque, Larry Robinson, Yvon Lambert, and Guy Carbonneau, to name only
a few) attest to the coaching talents of mentors like Al McNeil who went
from winning a Stanley Cup with Montreal to winning a Calder Cup with
Nova Scotia in the antiquated Halifax Forum.

The author uses a chronological, season-by-season approach to develop
his narrative. Each chapter features an explanation of off-season
developments, including player losses and acquisitions, a summary of
season progress with detailed explanations of significant rivalries, and
a game-by-game analysis of playoff games. A particularly effective
technique is the inclusion throughout of quotations from players,
coaches, team officials, and members of the media taken from author
interviews, contemporary newspaper accounts, or books written by the
players themselves. Adding color are lengthy anecdotes about how
individual players responded to their call-up to the parent club,
humorous events, and “fight night” descriptions. Extensive action
photos, yearly team pictures, and card portraits of individual players
are interspersed throughout. A final section highlights the path taken
by 29 of the players since leaving the Voyageurs, and their current
status either within or outside the hockey fraternity. Extensive
appendixes cover all statistical bases.

Kent’s research and obvious infatuation with the Nova Scotia
Voyageurs will preserve the history of this first fully professional
hockey team to make the Maritimes its home.