Hockey Is Our Game: Canada in the World of International Hockey

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.

September 28, 1972 will remain for many the day Canada finally restored itself to its “rightful” place atop the pyramid of world hockey powers as Paul Henderson scored the winning goal in the eighth and deciding game of the Canada-Soviet Summit series. Having “invented” the pastime of ice hockey, Canada had enjoyed numerous decades of world supremacy, but being winless since 1952 at the Winter Olympics, and since 1961 at the World Championships, had led to Canada’s “hockey honour” being at stake as “our” best professionals played “theirs” in Moscow.

One of those present to see Henderson’s goal was the book’s author. Coleman, a former sports editor for the Toronto Telegram, has written a popular and personal history of Canada’s participation in international hockey. As someone who can trace his own involvement with global hockey back half a century, Coleman is well qualified to tell the story of Canada’s teams in the Winter Olympics and the World Championship Tournaments. The book’s opening and closing chapters focus on the 1972 Canada-Russia series, but sandwiched between are chapters on the Olympics from 1920 to 1984, the National Team concept of the sixties, the World Championship Tournaments, the Canada Cup Series of ‘76, ‘81, and ‘84 plus the development of Hockey Canada.

Coleman does not depart from the style of the typical hockey book. More descriptive than critically analytical, the text is readably laced with facts and figures plus interesting anecdotes. The large format book is generously illustrated with 100 black-and-white photos plus a 16-page insert of full colour photographs. A worthy addition to the hockey shelf for fans who want a wider perspective on Canada’s unofficial national sport.