Red's Story

Glynn A. Leyshon is a professor of physical education at the University
of Western Ontario, a former weekly columnist for the London Free Press,
and author of 18 Sporting Stories.

Red Storey was a football player with the Toronto Argos in the 1930s and
an NHL referee in the 1950s, and he has been an entertaining
after-dinner speaker ever since. He is opinionated, brash, and full of
home-spun philosophy. His innumerable tales of hockey bravado, injuries,
mad-cap nights, and the Montreal Riot are beloved by audiences at
athletic banquets all over the country.

This book tells it like it was—even if what it tells is not always
correct. For example, Red states that his knees were more vulnerable
because he was 6'3". This ignores the fact that most professional
football players today are well over that, and there seems to be no
particular increase in injury because of height; nor is there any
medical evidence of a correlation between height and injuries. But it is
Red’s opinion, and when you are 82, opinions are hard to change.
Fortunately Snyder has limited his editorializing, so that the essence
of Red Storey is preserved throughout the book.