Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Review of "Hockey 365"

When I saw this offering on NetGalley, my first thought was how could anyone find something to write about hockey for EVERY day of the year?  Including summer months?  This author pulled it off quite well.  Here is my review of "Hockey 365"



Title/Author:

Hockey 365: A Piece of Hockey History For Every Day” by Mike Commito

Tags:

Ice Hockey, History

Publish date:

September 22, 2018

Length:

312 pages

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars (Very Good)

Review:

No matter what day of the year one picks, there is a good hockey story to be told. This book by Mike Commito proves that point by providing an interesting story, historical moment or noteworthy accomplishment that happened on each date on the calendar.

Instead of these entries being very short entries like one would see on a page-a-day calendar, each anecdote by Committo is an extensive account of what happened in the world of professional hockey on that date. While there are some of the more well-known players mentioned, such as Wayne Gretzky and Maurice Richard, some other lesser know accomplishments are also included. 

For example, one might not know that in 1980, the Philadelphia Flyers set a record that still stands today. They played 35 consecutive games without losing (25 wins and 10 ties) when they defeated the Buffalo Sabres on January 6. Here, a rarity in the book happens when the same team or player is mentioned on consecutive days as the entry for January 7 is when the streak ended as the Flyers lost that night to the Minnesota North Stars 7-1.  (Note: I was at that game and it was one of the most memorable nights I have spent at a hockey rink – the atmosphere was electric)

There are many more stories about well-known and not so well-known players as I have only mentioned two dates here – only 363 more to go. The stories themselves are written well as the reader will learn something new in many of them without getting bogged down with too many details or statistics.  The author says as much in the introduction by giving the reader a description of what type of research he did and what topics to find. That was a great aide in reading this book so that it made the book match my expectations.  It is one that is recommended for any hockey history buff.

I wish to thank Dundurn for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Book Format Read:

E-Book (Kindle)

Buying Links:


No comments:

Post a Comment