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windingdot's review against another edition
5.0
Stephen Brunt is one of my all-time favorite sportswriters, and has been for years. I always loved his columns in the Globe & Mail, enjoyed Searching for Bobby Orr very much. He's a very skilled writer and very smart, able to weave in wider social and cultural context to writing about sports.
This book is no different. He discusses the events leading up to the Gretzky trade. At this point, there aren't really any revelations -- I think anyone who has paid attention to hockey since 1988 knows that Gretzky was sold to LA because Peter Pocklington was having money problems. The PR line at the time, that Gretzky asked to be traded to the Kings so his new wife could continue her acting career, was discredited soon afterwards. But Brunt's perspective on the trade is still welcome and fresh, because he does provide a lot of background information on what went on from people involved, like Bruce McNall, or Peter Pocklington's PR man.
And he goes beyond just a retelling of the trade itself into looking at what it meant in terms of the direction the NHL took post-1988, what it meant in terms of how Canadians viewed hockey and the NHL, and so on. There's some really insightful writing in here about the meaning of sports in contemporary culture. He also explores the unraveling of the fortunes of both Bruce McNall and Peter Pocklington in more depth than I'd personally read before.
Brunt's pretty cynical about the post-Gretzky NHL and American expansion in general. I suppose that leaves a bit of a sour note for me, just given that he implicitly at least would deny my favorite team the right to exist. Although his wider point about the illusory nature of NHL expansion in the U.S. is taken.
The chapters at the end about Gretzky's role in Phoenix do seem a bit rushed and not as artful as the rest of the book. But I'd highly recommend this to any sports fan as an essential work in understanding the contemporary NHL and how it came to be as it is circa 2009-10.
This book is no different. He discusses the events leading up to the Gretzky trade. At this point, there aren't really any revelations -- I think anyone who has paid attention to hockey since 1988 knows that Gretzky was sold to LA because Peter Pocklington was having money problems. The PR line at the time, that Gretzky asked to be traded to the Kings so his new wife could continue her acting career, was discredited soon afterwards. But Brunt's perspective on the trade is still welcome and fresh, because he does provide a lot of background information on what went on from people involved, like Bruce McNall, or Peter Pocklington's PR man.
And he goes beyond just a retelling of the trade itself into looking at what it meant in terms of the direction the NHL took post-1988, what it meant in terms of how Canadians viewed hockey and the NHL, and so on. There's some really insightful writing in here about the meaning of sports in contemporary culture. He also explores the unraveling of the fortunes of both Bruce McNall and Peter Pocklington in more depth than I'd personally read before.
Brunt's pretty cynical about the post-Gretzky NHL and American expansion in general. I suppose that leaves a bit of a sour note for me, just given that he implicitly at least would deny my favorite team the right to exist. Although his wider point about the illusory nature of NHL expansion in the U.S. is taken.
The chapters at the end about Gretzky's role in Phoenix do seem a bit rushed and not as artful as the rest of the book. But I'd highly recommend this to any sports fan as an essential work in understanding the contemporary NHL and how it came to be as it is circa 2009-10.
melissajayne's review against another edition
3.0
Review originally appeared on http://jaynesbooks.blogspot.com
I really quite enjoyed it being as I am a hockey fan and have followed much of the exploits of what happened in regards to the NHL expansion since the mid-1990s and the eventual downfall of the game in the Southern United States. It was not only interesting from from my prospective as a hockey fan, but also as somebody who is interested in history and has been following the news stories in regards to the Phoenix Coyotes, which were once located in Winnipeg and were called the Jets and can recall the moves of various and formation of teams since 1994.
I also liked how Brunt integrated the climate of Canada as a country at the time of the Gretzky "trade" with the events surrounding his departure. While I was alive at the time and probably saw it on the news the day of the event, I recall the Ben Johnson scandal that hit the fan in the next 3 weeks afterwards. Its strange how one recalls certain events and not others, even though both are significant in terms of one's sporting history, especially when they occur within a few weeks of each other.
I really quite enjoyed it being as I am a hockey fan and have followed much of the exploits of what happened in regards to the NHL expansion since the mid-1990s and the eventual downfall of the game in the Southern United States. It was not only interesting from from my prospective as a hockey fan, but also as somebody who is interested in history and has been following the news stories in regards to the Phoenix Coyotes, which were once located in Winnipeg and were called the Jets and can recall the moves of various and formation of teams since 1994.
I also liked how Brunt integrated the climate of Canada as a country at the time of the Gretzky "trade" with the events surrounding his departure. While I was alive at the time and probably saw it on the news the day of the event, I recall the Ben Johnson scandal that hit the fan in the next 3 weeks afterwards. Its strange how one recalls certain events and not others, even though both are significant in terms of one's sporting history, especially when they occur within a few weeks of each other.
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