With my subscription to Audible, there are books that can be obtained at no charge just like Kindle Unlimited. This book, even though it was published 20 years ago, caught my eye as I am always interested in books that have information on the former Soviet Union's hockey program. I loved this audiobook and highly recommend it to readers of hockey books.
Title/Author:
“When the
Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey’s Cold War and Changed the Game” by
Gare B. Joyce, narrated by Jeff Burling
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review:
The World Junior
Ice Hockey Championship tournament is one of the most prestigious tourneys in the
sport. Teams of young players compete
early each calendar year to represent their countries and become of a source of
national pride, especially in hockey-mad nations like Canada. In the 1987 World Juniors, Canada had a chance
to capture the gold medal with a win over the Soviet Union in the last game of
the tournament, who fell out of medal contention.
However, instead
of a coronation for Canadian superiority, a bench clearing brawl occurred with
6:07 left in the second period. This “skirmish”
(what it was called by CBC broadcasters when they came back from a commercial
break) led to tournament officials to remove both nations from the tourney,
thereby denying the Canadians a chance at a medal. This book by Gare B. Joyce
covers every aspect of this event – before, during and after – and does an
excellent job in doing so.
Joyce gives
excellent background information on the hockey organizations of both nations –
the junior hockey program in Canada and the Soviet Union’s hockey development
as well. Players, coaches and off-ice employees
are all mentioned in this section and this leads up to the teams competing in
the 1987 tourney.
Several players
on both sides will be familiar to fans of NHL hockey in the 1990’s and early
2000’s. Two notable players on each side
were Brendan Shanahan and Theo Fleury for Team Canada, Sergei Federov and
Alexander Mogilny for the USSR. The sections
on the actual brawl are quite interesting as the narration by Burling is great
here. The instructions are for a reader
to put in the DVD (book was originally published in 2006) and stop at various
points where Burling describes Joyce’s observations of what was going on. I
thought this was a unique way of capturing what was happening on the ice during
the brawl, and it was excellent.
After the
brawl, the description of the events afterward, to a reader not familiar with
the incident, may seen biased toward the Canadians and even I thought at times
if felt that way. Two things stood out
to overcome that thought – one was Joyce’s explanation of the dismissal of many
conspiracy theories about officials not wanting to award Canada a medal. The other was his criticism, which to many
was fair, of referee Hans Ronning. The Norwegian
was named to be the referee for this game for his neutrality but instead his lack
of being able to control the players was clear, long before the brawl. In order to stop the fighting, arena workers
were asked to turn off the lighting, which was the inspiration for the title of
book.
While the two
teams were kicked out of the tourney and each player was suspended for one
year, that was reduced to six months, which allowed several players from both
nations to again compete in 1988, both in the World Juniors and the Olympics
held that year in Calgary. Here, Joyce
does more fantastic writing and research on describing what took place not only
there, but how this affected the players, coaches and the overall rivalry
between the two hockey nations, which was going to change drastically soon with
the fall of the Soviet Union.
Finally, one more
terrific aspect of the book – Joyce’s interviews with players from both sides nearly
20 years after that event. For some, it
affected them greatly. Others, not so
much, but each interview Joyce published here had some great insight given by
the players. It also had interesting
stories about the Russian players who were now free to play in the NHL and
other professional leagues. Mogiliny’s
story was quite riveting as he had to apply for asylum as he was going to come
to North America before others were officially allowed by the Russian
government.
If a reader is interested in the World Junior tournament, Canadian junior hockey or hockey in the former Soviet Union, this book is for them. A great read, even 20 years after its first publication.
