It’s Our Game: Celebrating 100 Years of Hockey Canada

This unlikely and politically incongruous collection made for a sometimesvolatile situation.

Completed after the author’s death by two of Zimmerman’s former students and fellow Lakehead professors, The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior is a fascinating look into the politics of wartime internment camps and the role Canada played as host to the unique group of internees at Camp R. — Sandy Klowak by Michael McKinley Viking, 432 pp., $39.95 Featuring a foreword written by Wayne Gretzky and an introduction by recent Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson, It’s Our Game provides a broad overview of the first hundred years of Hockey Canada, the sport’s governing body in this country at the amateur level. Author Michael McKinley is a writer, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and screenwriter, and has written several books on hockey.

Illustrated with hundreds of photos, It’s Our Game explores three main periods: up to 1945, 1946 to 1983, and 1984 to the present. One hundred brief chapters are presented in chronological order. They cover topics ranging from hockey during the war years, to The Hockey Handbook — which changed how the sport was conceived and taught — to Canada’s women’s team at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

It’s interesting to learn how long ago women’s hockey was played. The women’s game awarded its first championship trophy, the Lady Meredith Cup, in 1920, but women had been playing decades earlier. And, compared to what we see today, the equipment (or, more precisely, lack thereof!) worn by early players is remarkable.

It’s Our Game is an interesting collection of bite-sized stories and makes an attractive addition to any library.

— Danielle Chartier