Putting a Roof on Winter: Hockey's Rise from Sport to Spectacle

Janet Money is a writer and policy analyst for the Canadian Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation in Toronto.

This reasonably well-written history of hockey begins with the first
known indoor game, which took place on March 3, 1875, at Montreal’s
Victoria Skating Rink. The game organized by James Creighton, who in all
likelihood was seeking only to find an interesting way to help his rugby
teammates stay in shape over the off-season.

McKinley goes on from there to describe the early years of organized
hockey in North America, the birth of the Stanley Cup, and emergence of
a professional game, the rise and fall of such teams as the Detroit Red
Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs. There are profiles of Conn Smythe and
the tragic Bobby Orr, among others, and a concluding chapter on the 1972
Soviet Union–Team Canada series. As McKinley’s subtitle suggests,
the first century of indoor hockey witnessed a shift from a game of
beauty to one of rank ugliness.

Is another history of hockey necessary? Probably not, but Putting a
Roof on Winter is attractively illustrated and worth reading even if you
know the basic facts.