GIFT GUIDE TO GOOD READS
From Gilmour to Dryden, Gould to Lightfoot, more books to give and get this Christmas,
HOCKEY
Other sports might be out there, but let’s face it: this year marked 100 years of the NHL and the Toronto Maple Leafs. So here’s a little something for everyone.
Beartown, by Fredrik Backman (Simon and Schuster)
Something a little different for hockey lovers, this one’s about a small Swedish town, a quintessential hockey town. The local hockey team could be the saving grace for an industrial town in decline — if they can win a title and attract a new training facility. An eminently readable and timely hockey book with a page-turning narrative that also looks at the dark side of hockey culture.
Killer, by Doug Gilmour with Dan Robson (HarperCollins)
He may have played on seven teams over his career, but he is remembered most as the Toronto Maple Leafs captain who led the blue and white to its best chance of a Stanley Cup in decades. This is the story of the Hockey Hall of Famer known in these parts simply as Dougie.
100 Years100 Moments, by Scott Morrison (McClelland and Stewart)
This is the NHL’s100th season. There are plenty of books out there looking back at various aspects of the sport — from the architecture of arenas to the original six.
This one, too, is a good gift for hockey lovers, commemorating Bobby Orr’s incredible tro- phy wins to Scotty Bowman’s Russian Five. In a town known as Leafs Nation headquarters, it goes beyond tradition to look at the entire league.
Game Change, by Ken Dryden (Signal)
Anyone who’s played hockey knows that one of the sport’s biggest risks is head injuries. The issue of concussions in hockey has become one of the sport’s enduring controversies. In this book, Ken Dryden looks at the untimely death of Steve Montador at the age of 35 — brought on by a series of head injuries. “2017 is the NHL’s one-hundredth anniversary. It’s a natural time to look back, to see where we’ve been, to see where we are, to see where we’re going,” he writes.
This book is a call for change in the way the game is played.
Offside, by Sean Avery (Viking)
He’s been one of hockey’s provocateurs — with off-ice behaviour that made more headlines than his on-ice skills.
Still, if players ever needed a role model to understand that there is life after hockey, Sean Avery is probably that person, with stints as a restaurateur, an intern at the fashion magazine Vogue and as a model. This tell-all memoir pulls no punches: “John Tortorella, for whom Avery played in New York, has everything from his stickhandling to his character assassinated,” noted the Star’s Dave Feschuk. But it’s also a whole lot of fun.