Etched in Ice: A Tribute to Hockey's Defining Moments

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

In this attractive coffee-table book, combining photographs and NHL
history, Michael McKinley has chosen 25 “moments” that “share an
essential quality: they changed the sport, or their society, and often
they did both.” Although one might disagree with a few selections,
McKinley supports his choices with sound reasoning. This
screenwriter—who has published articles in Sports Illustrated, the Los
Angeles Times, and the Vancouver Sun—presents his arguments with a
poetic prose reminiscent more of the summer game of baseball than the
winter game of hockey.

To McKinley, the central defining moment in hockey is the 1972
Canada–Soviet series when Paul Henderson’s goal temporarily saved
the honor of Canada. (That the author was an impressionable Grade 6
student at the time made the event seemingly more important.) But
McKinley also believes that the 1955 Richard riots were more pivotal to
the nation—the “flash point for Quebec nationalism that began in
1960, and which so occupies Canada’s national imagination today.”

The treatment is essentially chronological, with some sections citing a
“defining moment.” Not all are positive (such as the premature
deaths of Canadiens’ star Howie Morenz and American college hero and
“Ideal Athlete” Hobey Baker), but each one—starting with the 1894
Montreal win of the Stanley Cup and ending with the 1994 “about
time” win by the New York Rangers—is documented in words and
photographs with equal effectiveness. Other moments are highlighted
involving players such as Jacques Plante (his use of a mask), Wayne
Gretzky (an unexpected trade), and Bobby Hull (the birth of the rival
WHA). Foster Hewitt’s radio broadcasts, Hockey Night in Canada’s
television debut, women in hockey, and the earlier truly amateur Olympic
hockey teams are also highlighted. The 1967 Stanley Cup clash between
the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens—the last year of the
original six—provides nostalgia for the purist. Etched in Ice is a
very enjoyable read.