James Duthie

Duthie continues in this book his usual style of collecting sport anecdotes which frequently contain humour. In this volume the stories centre around hockey and the many outrageous funny characters who inhabit the sport. Some of the players are familiar such as Mario Lemieux and Sid Crosby. There also lesser known individuals who had their brief moment of fame because they scored important goals in important games.

Because Duthie is a presenter on TV sports, we have stories from the playing career of some of men and women who work with him on those channels. It is fun to learn about the active hockey background of hockey analysts such as Bob McKenzie, Craig Button, Ray Ferraro and Mike Johnson.

There are the essays about serious issues such as children dying of incurable diseases. Thus the names Laila Anderson and Jonathan Pitre appear with the affect they had on the hockey players who came in contact with them and what hockey meant to them.

While not writing great literature, Duthie does a great job of presenting our hockey heroes as funny people who in most cases display great charity to their fellow human beings. Some years ago, I managed teenage boy hockey teams. The antics by those young hockey players in those dressing rooms years ago matched those described in this book.… (meer)

This is a collection of columns Duthie references to wrote for TSN.ca . Most are humourous but he does tackle a few serious subjects such as kids wearing helmets when skating and September 11, 2001. I did find a bit tiresome his constant references to his beautiful young women especially Anna Kournikova. To his credit, he did mention in one column that he had been overdoing it somewhat with his references to her.

I did appreciate the inside stories on the background of some of the men & women he covered especially the essay on Brian Kilrea.

If you love sports and especially hockey, this is a good read for you. basketball? Not so much.… (meer)