I got this book for my husband a few years back because he told me he liked reading to impress me but I've only seen him read one book in the years we've been together... he still insists he's going to read this but in the meantime I thought I'd pick it up to learn a thing or two about his favourite team and goalie, and because I do like sports culture. It's widely considered one of the best sports books of all time.
Ken Dryden is a former goalie for the Montreal Canadiens and the book chronicles his last year playing professional hockey ('78-'79 season). Dryden is an interesting athlete because he's also a lawyer and practiced both law and politics after his retirement from the game. For me, a large part of the book's success is how articulate and compelling of a writer Dryden is. I'm not sure a lot of athletes could paint such a successful or holistic picture of the multifaceted lifestyle of playing professional sports. My copy has a foreword by Bill Simmons where he mainly says the same.
Scott, my husband, loves hockey. I know a lot of guys who love hockey just the same but Scott, who doesn't care about much of anything, is such a fun person to watch obsess over something. I've taken to watching hockey with him but I care more about googling the players than watching their stick handling. I love learning about how they got started and watching old clips of them skating around in Timbits jerseys. Dryden's book caters to both mine and Scott's interests. It's packed with details about the games and players in the '78 season but peppered throughout are so many great stories about him playing ball hockey with his brother as a kid, etc..
Particularly, Scott has a thing for goalies. Everyone who knows him knows he has a low key obsession with Carey Price - he loves to make excuses for him when he's had a bad game but tell me "he's back!" when he has a good game - but Scott actually requested a a framed picture of Dryden leaning on his stick to be hung in our basement over a picture of Price - Dryden was his first love. I guess the position is somewhat iconic (it's on the cover of the book) and Dryden acknowledges it here:
I guess the Canadiens used to be good, lol. Weirdly enough I married someone who cheers for the same hockey team as my dad, and even when I was a kid I remembered them being terrible. Dryden was the Canadiens' goalie for a few cups and I believe is widely regarded as one of the best goalies in the sport, but you would never know it from this book. Modesty and humility are the two main traits I'd attribute to him after finishing it.
Dryden talks about the technical elements of the game- speed, hands, etc., but also the mental challenges of being a goalie, the pressures of being a a cup winning team, what it means to ready for a game, etc. He talks a lot about being prepared- knowing your opponent and how they play, etc., but at a certain point having to let that go and let your muscle memory play for you or your brain and logic can interfere. He talks about how good players haven't just memorized plays, they can "invent" the game in new situations and know how to pivot on the fly. A lot of what he talks about when he talks about hockey I would assume applies to most sports.
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Canadiens celebrating with coaches after their '79 Stanley Cup win |
Hands down the most interesting thing for me about this book was Dryden's observations about his life passing him by. I always assumed athletes and celebrities alike share these lavish lives and have tons of time to spend with their loved ones but Dryden paints a picture that's honestly pretty depressing.
Similarly:
For the first two years we were together Scott worked a fly-in/fly-out job across Canada where he would be gone for 3-4 weeks and sometimes home for only two. This arrangement was perfectly fine before we were seriously considering having a family as I really value my alone time but I felt a shiver of anxiety reading that passage from Dryden remembering what is was like to try and jam a full life into two weekends every six weeks... who we would hang out with, what we would do, etc. I thrive on routine and the chaos of him coming home would sometimes turn me into the worst version of myself.
This is where Dryden being a fantastic writer really propelled the book for me because I could fully understand the mental rigour of his experience. I never considered athletes would have this experience but it makes complete sense and really gives me a new appreciation for professional sports families. The below passage, especially the concept of "neighborhood fathers" was almost heartbreaking.
Dryden also talks a lot about his anxieties as a professional goaltender. He feared injuries, like I'm sure most athletes do, as well as the ability to keep performing, but another thing that I found interesting was his concern that he wasn't appreciating the time in the NHL the way he felt he ought to be. He talks a lot about not being able to make the connection between what he was doing on the ice and the goalies he idolized growing up. He tells a fantastic story about the first time he and his brother played against each other in the NHL and how it didn't feel the magical way he always thought it would growing up, and how that was both a bummer but normal because they'd played against each other unprofessionally thousands of times before.
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Dryden and his family when the Canadiens retired his jersey number |
I used to work at a very ritzy country club where several NHL players played golf during their summers and most of them proved to be the cocky assholes I'd always imagined them to be. Reading this book added a new angle to professional athletes for me. I empathized with Dryden and almost felt sorry for him through a lot of it, whether that was the intention or not. I think this must be why it's considered one of the best sports books of all time, it gives you a totally different picture of what the lifestyle is like.
I really enjoyed reading this and think anyone interested in sports, hockey or otherwise, would enjoy it a lot as well. It's detailed, well-written, and emotional.
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