Still More It Happened in Hockey

Albert Stray is librarian and manager of the Streetsville Public
Library.

Former Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster and noted raconteur Brian
McFarlane, once again shares stories gleaned from the dressing room,
hockey archives, and interviews with some of the great and infamous from
our national game. Arranged in five sections, this most intriguing book
contains both the weird and the wonderful, putting a human face on the
antics that most of us have known only from television and radio.
There’s more goes on in a radio booth than meets the ear, as the story
by Joe Bowen and Bill Waters confirms.

Take a journey back to 1979, when Lanny McDonald was traded. McFarlane
takes us into the Leafs’ dressing room when Lanny entered holding two
tickets to Colorado, and he and Daryl Sittler burst into tears. Also
included are the antics of Eddie (Clear the Track) Shack and Tiger
Williams.

The author outlines 100 years of hockey at Oxford and Cambridge, and
describes Lester Pearson’s playing for Oxford in the 1920s. Imagine
playing a game with the referee suspended overhead in a gondola or
getting on John Brophy’s bad side, as did Miroslav Frycer. Who can lay
claim to being the worst team all-time? Who remembers the WHA or the
national shame when four players quit Team Canada in 1972? We all know
about Manon Rheaume, but it was a 22-year-old woman from Glen Falls,
N.Y., who in October 1993 had the distinction of being the first woman
in professional hockey to be credited with a win. A few black-and-white
photographs of hockey’s earlier era add interest.

It’s all here: the amusing (and embarrassing) like the Golden Jet
losing his “hair” in a fight, or little Camille Henry in full
uniform and skates chasing a fan down the street; the not so funny, such
as the antics of Harold Ballard and the demise of Showdown; and the
touching—Guy LaFleur’s promise to a sick boy in Calgary. And of
course what would hockey today be without Don Cherry? All in all a great
book for the hockey fan.