2 comments about And ...Howe!: An Authorized Autobiography.

1. this book made my love hockey even more and know more about the howe family and there lives and i live in mich and gordie in on of the most see people in ths town and state



2. I am not an avid reader, but this book kept me glued to every page. Gordie and Colleen Howe share many interesting stories of not only their life with hockey but also of their family. I recommend this book for everyone, especially hockey fans.

No comments about Hockey's Greatest Players (Step into Reading).

No comments about Hockey in the Seventies: The Game We Knew.

1 comments about Wayne Gretzky: Hockey Great (Sports Achievers).

1. I'm writing about the book I read in Social Studies. This book was farly good. This book talked about Wayne's life. It said that when he was a little kid he moved to Toronto to get away from all the paretens who's kids were mad that he was always scoring. At a young age Wayne played hockey with his grandmother. Wayne was also great as a young boy. Wayne was 18 years old when he started to play hockey in the NHL. Wayne has 40 Reular season records. Wayne played for 4 different teams. Wayne Gretzky is the greats or one of the greats. I think that if you like sports you should read this book.

1 comments about Sports Great Wayne Gretzky (Sports Great Books).

1. Sports Great Wayne Gretzky was one of the best book i have ever read.It`s also my favorite book because i love hackaey , play the sport,and it's true about a professional hockey player.also because even though he was traded many times he still played hockey. Sports Great Wayne Gretzky is one of the best books I have read so far.

1 comments about Robinson for the Defense.

1. I picked up this book at a used book store in Saint John, New Brunswick when I was on vacation there. I imagine it's long out of print, but I had to pick it up since I've always been a big fan of Larry Robinson.
   
   This is a typical sports autobiography, not well written (not everyone can be Ken Dryden), but still entertaining. I really enjoyed reading about the Canadiens teams of the '70s and '80s and Robinson was one of the key contributors to those teams. Not many players have won six Stanley Cups, but he is one of the few, so we get to hear what it was like from a first-person perspective. I also enjoyed reading about some of the Canadiens then-future stars like Patrick Roy and Chris Chelios to see what a veteran teammate thought of them at the beginning of their careers. Funny to read about Patrick Roy being initially inconsistent, although Robinson correctly predicted that he would be in the same class as Grant Fuhr and Billy Smith if he ironed out his inconsistency.
   
   So for writing skill, this is probably only three stars, but for content I'd call it four or five stars and that's why my final rating is four stars.

No comments about Gretzky: From Backyard Rink to the Stanley Cup.

No comments about The Broad Street Bullies: The Incredible Story of the Philadelphia Flyers.

No comments about The Sensational Jarome Iginla (Hockey Canada).

5 comments about Glenn Hall.

1. There is a scene in the beginning of the movie ANCHORMAN where Ron Burgundy says to his would-be conquest "You may not know this, but in this town I am really somebody."
   
   In the 1960's, in the original six NHL, and on Chicago's West Side, Glenn Hall was really somebody. All the Black Hawks were. Glenn Hall filled out a line-up that was as charismatic as any on ice.
   
   Hockey was a different appeal at that time. Jacque Plante first introduced the goalie face mask, and Glenn Hall was one of the very last to embrace it.
   
   It wasn't until Bill Masterson of the Minnesota North Stars passed away after getting checked along the boards that players wore helmets. The game was more intimate. Local TV stations brought the product into the home, and because the players did not wear helmets, fans knew what players looked like.
   
   Because there were only six teams in the league, we would see all the players many times in a season. As a boy, I could recite player numbers, goals, assists, and even penalty minutes of almost any player in the league. There were less than 100 players!
   
   Glenn Hall had some quirks. He would vomit before each start. It was his ritual. But he pioneered the butterfly technique of goalkeeping, which is a standard today.
   
   He was a workhorse, and one in a long line of great Black Hawk goalies.
   
   The author revisits Hall, now in his 70's, and and gives him the due respect of an idol. Hall proves to be a worthy idol, being a down to earth and decent family man.
   
   He also takes us through his life and times in the NHL, with the Red Wings, Black Hawks, and finally and most satisfying to Hall, winding his career down with the Blues.
   
   In my eyes, the early and mid 1960's were the Golden Age of hockey. Hall was a worthy standard bearer. Was he the greatest goalie of all-time? Fans of Sawchuck, Esposito, Hasek, Roy, and Brodeur all have good arguments. The author makes his case for Hall, and I am not prone to disagree.
   
   I enjoyed the book, for its simplicity, for the passion the author has for the subject, and for my own great memories of those great Black Hawk teams, and Hall himself.
   
   For the Baby Boomer Hockey fan, two thumbs up.



2. The author is basically a fan of Hall rather than a bitter journalist and because of this he gets it right. I was most interested in Hall's days sharing the nets with Jacques Plante in St. Louis and it shows how Hall basically helped turn St. Louis into the NHL's best new market back in 1967. Hall also comes across as no dummy and a very honorable teammate and man.

   It's really great that when his story was told, it was told by someone who understands that Hall not Sawchuk, Roy, Plante, Hasek or Tretiak is hockey's greatest goalie.

   The only points he missed were no action shots inside showing Hall's famous V, or butterfly, style that truly revolutionized goaltending (sorry, Patrick Roy, but it wasn't you) and he kept calling his "glovehand" his "catch glove" which I have never heard in all the years I've played or watched hockey.




3. This is a good book for hockey enthusiasts. Coach-Tom Adrahtas
   traces Mr. Goalie's rise to stardom with a series of stories
   and centerfold pictures. The height of the star's success
   is the Stanley Cup earned in 1961. The author captures the
   enthusiasm of the croud during the cheering in the St. Louis
   arena. In addition, the author relates Hall's "Jack Dent Award"
   for an MVP on the Windsor Spitfires. The NHL doors opened for
   him when he arrived at the Red Wing Camp. The factual content
   of Hall's career is conveyed at major juncture points by
   the author. The book is a worthy investment for sports buffs.



4. Everyone who has ever donned the pads and has even the slightest sense of hockey history has waited for someone to tell the amazing story of one of the creases greatest denziens. Glenn Hall's amazing accomplishments on the rink have been enshirened in sport's almanacs and stat books for all to see, but no one has ever been able to bring his personal story to light. No one until Tom Adrahtas.

   Mr. Adrahtas tells the story masterfully, skillfully inserting personal quips and candid comments from the people who knew Hall best, while narrating the career of this Hall-of-Fame goaltender. In addition to this unusual but highly entertaining style of sports biography, Mr. Adrahtas goes a step further and includes his own personal essays and thoughts on goaltending and growing up around the game of hockey. Normally, it is not recommended that an author try to add to an already amazing story, but Mr. Adrahtas pulls it off beautifully. Far from detracting from the subject matter, Mr. Adrahtas' sidebars are enlightening and essential for appreciating the authors passion for the game. What's more they are essential to understanding what drove great goaltenders like Glenn Hall.

   In the end, it was hard to tell which was more enriching; Glenn Hall's life story or Tom Adrahtas' passion for goaltending. In either case, no goalie can afford to miss this book.




5. This book is must reading for goalies, for St. Louis Blues fans, for Chicago Blackhawk and Detroit Red Wings fans, for NHL fans, for "Original Six" fans, for anyone who loves hockey today and wants to get a sense of the history of the game, and of course of the great Glenn Hall's place in that history. Tom "Chico" Adrahtas brings Hall's phenomenal career to life with passion and clarity. Whether it's the "slow-motion" detail with which Adrahtas describes some of Hall's career highlights, or some cutting and lucid insight into the mind and life of one of the best hockey players of all time, you cannot help but be drawn in. Adrahtas states up front that he intends to prove that Mr. Goalie was the greatest goaltender of all time, and then with a refreshingly unabashed dosage of heroe worship, he proceeds to do just that. And he does it not only with the cold, hard statistics that bear out Hall's greatness (e.g. his "impossible" 502 consecutive games in the NHL, the first "expansion" team player in the Hockey Hall of Fame), but perhaps more importantly by getting to the core of his character. Adrahtas, himself a goalie and a teacher of goalies, develops impressively throughout the book how goaltending is essentially a "character" position, what he calls "the most mentally demanding of all positions in sport." And while doing so he succeeds in convincing the reader that Glenn Hall's character is what sets him apart from, and elevates him above, the likes of Jacques Plante and Terry Sawchuk, his closest contemporary peers, and also apart from and above the best goalies of the modern era. This book is marvelous reading, a heartfelt tribute to a wonderful man who was surely the greatest goaltender of all time: Glenn Hall, Mr. Goalie.